Christine's Photo Gallery - North Wing
The Grainy Black and White Period

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No Room at
the Inn

This is the night I missed the last train home after being shown around the BBC TV centre by a broadcasting friend. I'd given up trying to sleep behind the curtain in the "photo-me" booth and decided, instead, to look for a photo to take, instead.

The irony of the students huddled around the portals of the Grosvenor Hotel appealed to me, although I didn't hold out much hope of getting a picture without a tripod. I wonder where they all are now ?

Cabinet Ministers, probably !

Victoria Station London,
April 1977 - 3am

Rusholme, Manchester
Winter 1975

Marion

My favourite subject by far is portraiture.

In the days when I was keenest at taking photographs, however, I was also at my poorest .. as a research student. So the portrait style I developed has the absolute minimum of setup or props. There's generally only ever one light .. and the pictures try to catch the subject as they were.

Marion Smith wasn't keen on having her photograph taken at first, yet her eyes in this spontaneous pose show that she's a natural subject - looking straight down the lens and back out of the paper like a professional.

The setting was a grotty student letting in a part of Manchester's Rusholme that has long since now been levelled and redeveloped and, yes, it really is a Chianti bottle serving time as a table lamp.

Just Pete's cup of tea

OK .. this one was a setup .. but not my idea.

The subject of this photograph is now a well-heeled jet-setting executive with his own very successful microelectronics company, a smart sports coupe and matching haircut. Back in those days he was just cuddly, lovable, "Pete" .. and what was I to do when he walked into my office with a cup of dry ice ?

Pete and I never seem to see much of each other these days .. but I guess I've just thought of a really good excuse for an email !

Oh .. and if you've got an eye for detail .. that thing in the background is an airbed, which I used to sleep on in my office when I was too tired to go home after an all-night debugging marathon !

I tell you .. the kids these days don't know they've lived !

"You sure this 'erbal stuff's OK ?"
Manchester - April 1977