I managed to get to Birmingham earlier this week to see the Knight of the Camera exhibition featuring the work of Sir Benjamin Stone.

The exhibition is staged outside in Centenary Square and was designed and built by Standard 8, a company who specialise in large-scale outdoor exhibitions (previous displays include projects for Oxfam, Reuters and Tom Stoddart’s iWitness). It was a pretty miserable day and probably not the best weather to be viewing the photographs in, however, an enjoyable excursion none the less.

Although I was most interested in Stone’s photographic record of customs and festivals, it was interesting to see his series of Parliamentary photographs. As Pete James and Elizabeth Edwards identify in the introduction to the book A Record of England, Stone’s approach to the Houses of Parliament has an ethnographic quality. Illustrated, for example, in this portrait of Corporal Laxon.

Corporal Laxon, House of Commons, 1908 © Sir Benjamin Stone/ Birmingham Library

Stone’s Parliamentary Diary (June 4 1908) notes: “Lunch at the House of Commons with Captain Wandsop who came with his servant Dyak from Borneo in native costume.” Whilst there is a sense of negotiation and arrangment to many of Ston’es portraits, Corporal Laxon, a former ‘Dyak Head Hunter’ and member of the Borneo Native Police, was reduced to the kind of typological representation adopted in anthropolocial studies, pictured front and side profile in both native and western dress.

There was also a panel which looked at Stone’s legacy and included the work of Tony Ray Jones, Daniel Meadows, Homer Sykes, Matthew Murray (whose work I’ve not come across before), David Moore and ongoing work by Anna Fox.

I’m Interested to see how Anna’s work develops. Called ‘Back to the Village’ it observes the uniquely English rituals that take place in the picturesque villages of Hampshire. Citing Sir Benjamin Stone as an influence, Anna is creating a collection of photographs documenting the customs – such as nativity plays, Halloween festivities and Guy Fawkes Night – that take place in thee villages. I can only find a couple of images on her website at the moment, including the one below.

© Anna Fox

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 4:42 pm and is filed under INSPIRATION. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.