As Peter Hamilton identified in his recent article in the BJP, some of the most acute observations of Englishness have been made by foreign photographers. Hamilton writes- “An outsider can stand back from the society and look at it dispassionately, finding equally odd and worthy of note the things the locals take for granted. This was probably why the German-born Brandt found the juxtapositions of his The English at Home so much grist to his mill.”

Alongside the photography of Brandt, Hamilton cites another body of work – Charmes de Londres (1952) – a collaboration between Izis-Bidermanas and Jacques Prevert, which uses place in the sense of the great metropolis as a signifier of Englishness. Though intended for a French market, it was also published in English as Gala Day London in 1953, with an additional text by John Betjeman, a quintessential expert on Englishness. As Hamilton explains “Izis deals in many ways with cliches about the English. There are foggy streets, Tower Bridge glimpsed through a grimy warehouse window, Thames-side activity, Battersea power station, street markets and the East End. But it is also a view that humanises the streets and offers a visual perspective that was influential for the Picture Post generation.”

A more contemporary study made by a foreign photographer would be Byker Revisted by the Finnish photographer Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. She is perhaps best known for her book Byker (1983), a seminal portrait of the terraced Newcastle community, eventually bulldozed to make way for the Byker Wall and the wholesale redevelopment of the area. She began her project in 1969, when she moved to the North East of England and lived in Byker for seven years, until her own house was demolished. Thereafter she continued to photograph and to collect testimonies from the residents for a further five years. Sirkka returned in 2003, negotiating an individual journey through the new Byker, building a portrait of the estate as it stands today. Here are some of the new photographs-

David with daughters Kadie and Robyn and Ty-dog © Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, 2008

Colin © Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, 2009

Some individuals had been photographed in the original project. In an official explanation of the work, we’re told that Sirkka “found a few of the remaining extended families of the traditional working class for whom the estate was designed. There are the self-defined individuals who seem to flourish in a street plan outsiders find impossible to navigate. Perhaps because she had been a stranger in the original Byker, Sirkka found herself drawn to the refugees, housed in the hard-to-let properties at the bottom of the estate, where the limitations of its planned lifespan have become most visible.”

Asylum seeker family from the Middle East © Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, 2007

Jean with daughter Gemma and her friend Kara © Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, 2007

You can see more of the photographers here.

Born in Myllykoski, Finland, in 1948, Sirkka began taking photographs at the age of twelve, inspired by her aunt Oili, who was a skilful amateur photographer. She developed a keen interest in documentary photography and later decided to study film making in the UK, enrolling at the Regent Street Polytechnic film school in London. Whilst there, she met up with Murray Martin and a number of other fellow students, with whom she formed the Amber Collective. In 1969, the collective moved to Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England, with a commitment to documenting working class communities, in film and in photographs.

Here are some of her original Byker photographs (more of which you can see online here):

Kendal Street © Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, 1969

Children playing house with discarded junk near Byker Bridge © Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, 1971

William (Willie) Neilson, Lawrence Square © Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, 1971

Young woman in Mason Street © Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, 1971

Isaac in front of his ‘Raby Swap Shop’ © Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, 1974

Another foreign photographer whose work you can find on Amber Collective is that of Peter Bialobrzeski. Bialobrzeski spent a year documenting Britain between 1991-1992 for a project called ‘Give My Regards to Elizabeth’. The work was shown at Side Gallery in 1993, however, it was never published as a book.  You can see a selection of images on the Amber website here.

Over the years Amber has built up a significant photographic collection, much of which you can now view online. And it’s well worth a look (here).

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There’s quite a comprehensive review of We English by Michael Cockerham over on his blog Blue Filter.

Thanks Michael for reminding me of Kate Schermerhorn‘s fantastic book America’s Idea of a Good Time (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2001), which presents an affectionate take on Americans at play to expose the surreal underbelly of the United States.

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I have a new exhibition of We English opening at South Hill Park in Bracknell this weekend. The opening reception is on Saturday 28th from 1.00-3.oopm.

Also exhibited is Observations on a Town by Janet Curley Cannon (details here) and work by the Brackell Camera Club who have collaborated on a project about Britishness (details here).

Start Time: Saturday, November 28, 2009
End Time:Sunday, January 24, 2010
Location: South Hill Park Arts Centre (Mirror Gallery & Atrium)
Street: Ringmead
Town: Bracknell, United Kingdom

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There’s a feature in this week’s British Journal of Photography (Issue: 18.11.2009) written by Peter Hamilton. Now the time returns again explores the new crop of photobooks, including We English, that document England/Britain. Hamilton’s article looks at the tradition of the national survey, discussing work from the likes of Bill Brandt and Ian Berry to Edwin Smith and James Ravilious.

Hamilton writes “Englishness has been a constantly recurring theme for documentary photography in recent years. In the last few weeks Chris Steele-Perkins has brought out England, My England, Simon Roberts has contributed We English and Sirkka Lisa- Kontinnen Byker Revisited. Each slots into a different niche of the national question about who ‘we English’ are, yet all intersect within the larger Venn diagram of photobooks about England or Britain.”

Now the time returns again by Peter Hamilton, BJP, 18.11.2009

Hamilton concludes “At the end of the day, the English famously have a sense of humour, something which touches so many of these pictures and books. Few English photographers are lauded as ‘great’ in the conventional histories of photography, that is to miss just what makes English photography so notable. By not taking itself too seriously, it has always managed to look at Englishness itself, and the rest of the world, with unjaundiced eyes.”

You can download a pdf of the article here.

And on the subject of the BJP, I’m going to be doing a book signing at their Vision 09 event this coming Friday in London. I’ll be doing the signing from 1.30pm on Chris Boot’s stand.

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I’ve just returned from an enjoyable weekend at Paris Photo where I was amused by how many people were photographing the photographs on display. It was happening on every stand with people photographing prints with their mobile phone cameras, digital compacts and even with high-end SLR cameras. What exactly do people do with these images?

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I’m going to be in Paris this Friday and Saturday for Paris Photo. The Photographers’ Gallery are exhibiting some We English prints (see them on stand B25) and I’ll be doing a book signing on the Schaden book stand (C 10) on Friday at 4pm. Hope to see some of you there.

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Thanks to all of you who entered the Flak Photo/ We English book giveaway.

Congratulations to the three winners-

Martin Buday

Rachel Wolfe

Sarah Patel

See more great photography on Flak Photo here.

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I’ve recently come across a few references to the work of the British photographer, Peter Mitchell (some of his work was included in ‘How We Are: Photographing Britain’ at Tate Britain in 2007) and I’m intrigued to find out more.

Kingston Racing Motors, Leeds, 1974 / Hudsons Newsagents, Seacroft Green, Leeds, 1978 © Peter Mitchell

So far I’ve been able to garner this information-

In the 1970s, Peter worked as a truck driver for Sunco, and photographed the sights of Leeds on his journeys around the city. He had the first landmark colour photography exhibition in the UK at Impressions Gallery in York in 1979 (the gallery is now based in Bradford). Titled ‘A New Refutation of the Viking IV Space Mission’, the show depicted the factories and small shop owners of Leeds, all photographed in a very formal manner with the aid of a stepladder. The idea was that this is how Leeds might be seen by aliens departing from their spaceship when the Mission from Mars finally lands on the unsuspecting city!

Small funfair in Roundhay Park, Leeds, 1982 / Home of the Underhill Brothers, Starbeck Lane, Stoke on Trent, 1982 © Peter Mitchell

In June 2007 Mitchell was included in a group show curated by Martin Parr at the Hasted Hunt gallery (now Hasted Hunt Kraeutler) in New York entitled COLOUR BEFORE COLOR. Parr selected a group of European photographers who were working with colour photography in the early 1970s either before or at the same time as William Eggleston and Stephen Shore in the US.

In an attempt to redress the balance, Parr’s exhibition attempted to demonstrate that an equally lively colour photography culture was evident in Europe both before and during the 70s. This work has been largely overlooked as it was not put together as a movement, nor was it promoted by high-profile institutions in the way that work by Eggleston, Shore and Joel Meyerowitz was.

In February 2008 Mitchell had an exhibition at the PSL Gallery in Leeds along with the work of Eric Jaquier called Strangely Familiar. Together they captured a bygone age in Leeds, with dance halls and coal yards, factories and mills.

You can read an interview with Mitchell and Jaquier in the Yorkshire Post here and see some of the photographs from the exhibition on the Guardian’s website here. There’s also an essay over on American Suburb X here written by Professor David Mellor.

Screengrab from Amercian Suburb X

Other than these links, there’s precious little about his photography on the web. If anyone knows of other references to Mitchell’s work, then please let me know.

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And here are details of another book about the English being penned by author, broadcaster and journalist Cole Moreton, which is due to be published next Spring. It’s called ‘Is God Still an Englishmen – How we lost our faith (but found new soul)’.

Moreton has a website and blog for the book, which you can read here.

And here’s his blurb-

“Who are we? What do we believe in? Where are we going?

Those questions used to be easy to answer, but there has been a revolution. The God who ruled over us for five hundred years has been overthrown. The soul of England has been transformed, almost without anybody noticing. Gone are the shared values that once made school children rise and sing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. Gone is the confidence of a nation that seemed so sure of itself and what it believed in, even as recently as the wedding of Charles and Diana, our last great festival of certainty.

Since then the number of people who go to church on Sunday has halved. More of us go to IKEA. Millions still believe in God but never want to go near a pew again. We have completely lost faith in the Christianity on which our nation was built, the religion – so bound up with class and power – that shaped our myths and legends, our laws and government, our language, literature, art and culture. Why have we turned away, and what does it mean?

The long-predicted death of the established Church has already happened, argues Moreton, himself a former teenage fundamentalist. He uncovers the battles, blunders, sex scandals and financial disasters that caused it. But this extraordinary story is about all of us, not just the Christians. Can a new national identity emerge, now that we have a thousand gods instead of just one? Moreton says yes. From the miners’ strike to the climate camp, and from Hillsborough to the funeral of Jade Goody, he reveals how a constantly evolving but uniquely English spirituality remains at the heart of who we are.”

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Here’s the publisher blurb- “Passionate, affectionate and indefatigably curious, In Search of England joins a tradition of writing, from William Cobbett to JB Priestley, that makes a journey around the English countryside and character. England is the most various of countries; within its borders, life changes mile on mile. Roy Hattersley celebrates crumbling churches and serene Victorian architecture, magnificent hills and wind-whipped coast, our music, theatre and local customs, and, above all, the quirky good humour and resilience of England’s denizens. In Search of England is an unapologetic love story, a paean of praise for all the fascinating variety and flavour of England’s places and people.”

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