...And now for my next trick?

Last week a line was drawn under my work in Hull. Stories I had begun in the 1980s and completed over the last three years - ‘Rag Bone!’, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Kandy de Barry!’ and ‘Star & Garter’ - all converged in one place. Drag artist Ray Millington, originally known as Kandy de Barry, was performing as Bobby Mandrell in the Star & Garter pub, now called Rayners. Rag and Bone man and long-term friend George Norris was there, not to collect scrap, but to photograph Ray. I was in Hull to show some friends our exhibition ‘You and Me in HU3’ at the Humber Street Gallery, which featured these three stories as well as pictures by George. An opportunity for a ‘happy snap’ too good to miss.

George Norris, Ray Millington and myself in Rayners, on Hessle Road, Hull March 23, 2024. 

Below George Norris with horse Sally and cart, The Star & Garter pub and Kandy de Barry performing in the St Georges pub, all taken in 1983

In two weeks’ time, our exhibition in Hull will be closing. All the books of the show have sold out, feedback in the comments book was heart-warming, media coverage and gallery footfall were terrific, and we’ve just finished a series of talks about it all. 

A couple of the hundreds of comments left by people who visited our exhibition at the Humber Street Gallery 'Wonderful, eye opening, Incredible, important photos'

Exhibiting this work has been as exciting for me as when I was a child blowing up an enormous balloon to bursting point, then letting it go, releasing the pent-up energy, wonderful to watch as it darts around the room. 

 

But now the hunt is on for the spent balloon. It’s never easy to find. And after going through the story-telling process, I am feeling like that spent balloon. I have to start again, but I need time for a rethink.

 

The big question – why bother?  

 

On and off for about the last 18 months and interrupted by the ‘You and Me in HU3’ exhibition, I have been shooting a new story, walking up and down the Lea Bridge Road in northeast London. it’s typically London and ordinarily happy, with business, leisure, faith, food, migration, gentrification, cycle and bus lanes, and 20 mph speed cameras. I want to capture the ordinariness of the changing face of London and I think the Lea Bridge Road community sums up this change perfectly. 

 

I knew I was going to hit the buffers once the Hull exhibition closed so I decided to take some pre-emptive action. As I was revisiting the stories I’d shot in Hull in the 1980s, I decided to ask my original tutor, respected documentarist Daniel Meadows, if I could show him my recent work and ask for feedback. Despite the passage of over 40 years Daniel hadn’t lost his edge. He asked me all the questions that had been nagging in the back of my mind. In short, why am I doing this? Is the story interesting enough? Are the pictures good enough? Why am I using an old Rolleiflex and shooting black and white film?

I have printed out Daniel’s key point and put them on my notice board. They are as good as they are brutal. Pulling out a few in bold to mull them over, I’ve added images to illustrate them. 

 

1 - ‘Sharpen the focus of your intent’ tells me I am not fully communicating what I am trying to say. This is true. I am still circling the story and need to find a way in to capture the essence of this community without misrepresenting it. This will take time. 

A woman waits for a bus on the Lea Bridge Road, London September 23, 2023.  

 

4 – ‘No point photographing familiar things unless you show them in a way which hasn’t been seen before.’ In short, the pictures are boring in terms of content, composition and light. I agree and have still not shot a picture that makes me think, mmm I’m happy with that, but I am getting closer. I have restricted myself to a square format film camera as an entrée to people I photograph on the street and as a visual challenge to my own picture-taking. I am very much struggling with technology, or the lack if it, with the Rolleiflex but I don’t want to do what I did when I was a student aged 23 shooting 35mm format black and white film, nor do I want to do what I did as a news photographer, using the latest 35mm digital technology. I want to struggle with something that is new to me and will, I hope, eventually produce different results from what I have done in the past. 

Boys chat on the top deck of a bus just off the Lea Bridge Road, London September 26, 2023.  

 

5 – ‘You seem to be avoiding getting too close and I wonder why?’ I know exactly why. I am trying to rebuild my confidence in photographing people and at the same time struggling with the notion of a ‘negotiated space’ in which to take these pictures. As a news photographer there was no negotiation, I just took. Today, I want my pictures to have a feel of ‘candid permission’, so the images will have a look of being candid while being permissioned but without being set up. This is a very small space that I am trying to occupy, which I sometimes fear might not really exist given it’s now 2024.

Girls chat as they wait at traffic lights to cross Argall Way that crosses Lea Bridge Road, London September 4, 2023.  

 

10 – ‘Justify working in black and white’. I have considered this and decided to shoot black and white for two reasons. The first was to take out the noise of colour that we are bombarded with on the street when composing pictures. Secondly, I wanted to give people actual prints and slow the ‘act of photography’. This I hope will produce an image for them that feels more considered and as a consequence is more treasured. 

A woman cycles down Lea Bridge Road, London, past graffiti on a wall, September 27, 2023.  

 

12 – ‘Keep going’. And this is what I intend to do. 

A woman vapes and blows smoke as she walks past dumped furniture on Bickley Road just off Lea Bridge Road, London, September 1, 2023.

 

This post originated as a few notes to clarify my own thinking. But after chatting to a few colleagues I realised that many are going through the same thought processes, so I decided to share some of my thinking. Rejecting the obvious attractions of a comfy sofa and afternoon TV I have loaded up the camera with film and headed out. 

 

Plucking up all my courage I asked Kelly Bear if I could photograph her and her dog, Dr Nommy, as they headed off to the vets just off the Lea bridge Road. At the end of the day, it’s just a picture of a woman in the street with a dog on a lead but to me it represents the next step as I leave the past in the past and try to use what I have learned in Hull with future work.

Kelly Bear with her dog Dr Nommy who were off to the vets along the Lea Bridge Road March 21, 2024. Kelly, who lives on the Lea Bridge Road, said the biggest change she had noticed is that there are so many better coffee shops since she moved to the area. 

 

Russell Boyce  

Edited by Giles Elgood  

 

Why shoot if you don’t have a target?

 I have a small collection of pictures shot over a couple of days recently. I like them but they don’t really have a home. They cannot be described as happy snaps to be casually shared on Instagram or Facebook, adding to the daily tsunami of images. And if I think about it, the  funeral of a stabbing victim, a dementia sufferer, a memorial service for a 19-year-old, and two off-duty Steam Punks are not images you’d click ‘like’ on. Your finger might hover for a moment, if you actually admired the image, but then you’d swipe away, considering it poor taste to like a picture from a funeral or of an elderly dementia sufferer sunning himself.

 

I was back in Hull because the BBC wanted to do a piece about my Star & Garter pictures. I arrived two days early to stay with my friend George Norris. There was a promise of informed chat about photography as we walked around the town looking for potential outdoor exhibition spaces for our work. A few pints and certainly a curry were also dialled in. 

 

With the hour change it got dark early so we decided to pop into the Rayners (formerly the Star & Garter) for a quiet pint on a wet Wednesday night and a chat about the possible spaces we’d looked at.

 

The place was jumping. Drag artiste and DJ Regina Sparkles was leading a karaoke-themed night to celebrate the life of Adam Smith, who had died four years ago aged 19. For about two hours I resisted taking a picture. I felt like a gatecrasher, but as the evening progressed, George explained why I was there and I was warmly welcomed. Then Regina started to lead the dancing and I thought this is a must-have picture. 

 Just after I took this picture the music stopped and we were all bundled outside for the main event. It was balloon release time to remember Adam, and in true Hull fashion the heavens opened. With no coat on and getting rapidly soaked, I took another picture. But even as I took it I didn’t know what I would do with it.

Next morning George told me he was going to the funeral of his friend Jason Whincup and suggested I should come along. Jason was well-known in the rag-and-bone and traveller communities. He was stabbed to death outside his home. A man has been charged with his murder. 

 

I decided not to use 35mm digital cameras and took the Rolleiflex. I did this for two reasons. I was not on a news story but I wanted to capture the event and, secondly, I didn’t want to look predatory but I also wanted to get in close. 

I did not attend the actual service and left George to pay his respects. As I sat waiting for him, I reviewed my pictures from the previous night and thought about the ones I had just shot. Although neither set had any real coherence in terms of story value, both were linked by their subject matter. The celebration of a life. 

 

After lunch we walked back into town to look again at potential exhibition spaces, this time in daylight. The autumn sun had broken up the morning mist and the temperature rose a little. Initially, I thought I’d leave the Rolleiflex at home but remembered I had 10 frames left on the roll of film so decided to take it. 

 

This is when we met Ken and Jean Carr. Well bundled up, they were enjoying a drink in the sunshine outside their house, which was still decorated with the summer’s Jubilee celebration flags despite the queen’s death. 

All the time we chatted, Jean’s hand never strayed from her husband’s arm. She told us that Ken was out from the local dementia hospital for the day but would be returning shortly. I have posted them this picture. I hope they like it. 

 

Minutes later we bumped into Ryan Sharman and Marie Buckle, resplendently garbed. They agreed to being photographed, taking the time to pose, with a background they liked only feet away. I was very aware of the colour, so used a digital camera as well as the Rolleiflex. If I had to choose, I’d go for the black and white but for this post I have shared both. I had again shot successfully, but with no real target.

Fifteen minutes later in the centre of Hull I was greeted with a smile and the comment: ‘Ohhh, now that’s what I call a real camera.’ Exhausted from a day’s shopping, mum Tracy Denholm sat with daughter Melissa. ‘If only you’d been here yesterday. We were both fully dressed up as Steam Punks. In fact you’re unlucky, as we’re normally dressed up.’  

I liked it that they weren’t dressed up, but relaxed and smiling with a ciggie on. How could I resist shooting another untargeted random picture. Just one frame. When I sent the picture to them, Melissa quickly replied: ‘We love it. Thank you.’

 

I made it back to George’s house, four frames remaining in the camera. It was a lesson learned early in my career: always have at least one frame left. Then we had a take-away curry and some beers. Promise fulfilled.  

 

On the last day, my interview completed, the BBC’s Simon Spark was adding some colour to his piece. He was interviewing Rachel, the landlady of Rayners, and I thought I’d shoot a happy snap for her to keep. But what started as a throw-away snap ended up as a quirky optical illusion as the wall and carpet line perfectly bisects the image. The only thing stopping you from thinking that this is two pictures is the microphone, which breaks the line.  

In the end, I suppose I just have a random collection of images. But Jean, Ken, Ryan, Marie, Tracy, Melissa, Rachel and Simon each have a picture that I hope is important to them. I also hope that with time these images will become even more significant for them and their friends and family.

 

Maybe that is the target I am looking for: the importance of the person or story that may otherwise go unnoticed.  Who knows? I just love taking pictures and listening to people sharing their stories. 

Russell Boyce

 

Editing by Giles Elgood