BRITAIN IN FOCUS – A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY
2017-02-27Britain in Focus not only illustrates how a selection of acclaimed photographers documented, reflected and commented on their home country, and in doing so became known around the world, but how countless others have also contributed to the recording of national and social history over nearly 200 years.
Alongside pictures taken by anonymous soldiers in the First World War trenches and press shots of historic moments, the exhibition includes examples from the colourful world of post card producer John Hinde; John Bulmer’s ground breaking images from the North of England, which appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine in the 60s; WHF Talbot’s photographs of Lacock Abbey in the 1840s – some of the earliest ever taken; a selection of Jane Bown’s portraits of cultural figureheads from the 60s and 70s; Martin Parr’s inimitable views of the 1980s; Eamonn McCabe’s reports from the Heysel stadium tragedy; and Fay Godwin’s visual hymns to the British landscape.
Among the pioneers featured are Julia Margaret Cameron, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Cecil Beaton, as well as contemporaries currently living and working in Britain, such as Nadav Kander, Peter Mitchell and Mishka Henner.
Through their images, Britain in Focus also traces the path of an industry: how glass plates gave way to film cartridges, black and white transformed to colour, and photographic paper was replaced by digital pixels. A selection of Cartes de visite – one of the first commercially available methods of sharing photographs – sit with a selection of images from the social media network Instagram, originally posted by a teenager from Huddersfield.
Opposite – Washing line, Halifax, 1965, John Bulmer
Exhibition runs from March 17th through to June 25th, 2017
National Media Museum
Bradford
West Yorkshire
BD1 1NQ
www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk
