Club Meeting, 'Angels with Dirty Faces' - Tuesday 2nd October 2018.
On Tuesday 2nd October, Morpeth Camera Club welcomed guest speaker John Race, a member of Durham Photographic
Society with his presentation entitled ‘Angels with Dirty Faces.’ John opened the evening with images of mouldy old boots,
chairs, shoes, dirty feet, comical scruffy moulting rams, chickens with spiky feathers, mangy mutts and sad looking horses.
A Mental Hospital in Denby, with stark dreary exterior and interior shots depicting desolation and bleak emptiness, disused
petrol garages with rusty corrugated iron roofs, derelict abandoned houses on Skye, and almost buried cars in Weardale
were accompanied with interesting and humourous stories of people he came across on his travels. Interiors of old cottages
followed with eerie abandoned dolls, prams, an old bent bike with canvas tyres, cobwebbed bottles on filthy window ledges,
old yellowing newspapers, a rusty sewing machine, an old settee dumped in overgrown land and at Tanfield, textured rusty
chains, nuts and bolts.
Included were story telling images taken at Eldon Square Armistice Day of old timers and veterans with medals. Then WWII
re-enactment shots of jeeps, tanks, pilots, nurses, lands girls, and remarkably realistic battle scenes together with scenes of
the Sealed Knot, English civil war costume re-enactment. Abstract monochrome silhouetted figures at the Tate Modern, gritty
graffiti and murals captured in Glasgow and London and the alien like, eerie Anthony Gormley figures at Crosby beach, were
among the varied subjects. John included atmospheric shots of old fishermen’s sheds at Dungeness, wrecked and beached
rusty ships, decaying lighthouses, boathouses and skeletal trees in the mist, following on with stunning infra red shots taken
at Fountains Abbey and Gibside and scenes of Snowdonia with its ever changing light on the mountains and valleys together
with a graphic ploughed field with yellow rape seed on the horizon.
Portraits of people with a transient lifestyle came next, bearded buskers, sad characters living on the streets, lying in shop
doorways, hard faces filled with sadness with dirty hands and nails, sleeping off the effects of drugs, beggars and tattooed
down at heel characters with expressions of despair. There were detailed facial expressions of horse dealers, wrinkled smoking fishermen, quirky musicians at the Americana Festival, characterful red faced, spiky haired farmers at agricultural shows and
bedraggled horses and riders at Appleby Horse Fair. Throughout the evening John had the audience laughing out loud with
humorous anecdotes of his fathers experiences with a Blaydon Council steam roller, his eccentric neighbour who dresses in
German national costume, and conversations with characters he had come across whilst taking his photographs. Detailed
portraits depicted the sadness and despair of people dispossessed, his interiors portrayed squalor and abandonment, his
landscapes were dark, moody and atmospheric; ‘Angels with Dirty Faces’ was a very apt title for this presentation.
Club Chairman, Mark Harrison thanked John for a very interesting show after which a selection of his prints were on display
for club members to enjoy over coffee.
Steph.
Society with his presentation entitled ‘Angels with Dirty Faces.’ John opened the evening with images of mouldy old boots,
chairs, shoes, dirty feet, comical scruffy moulting rams, chickens with spiky feathers, mangy mutts and sad looking horses.
A Mental Hospital in Denby, with stark dreary exterior and interior shots depicting desolation and bleak emptiness, disused
petrol garages with rusty corrugated iron roofs, derelict abandoned houses on Skye, and almost buried cars in Weardale
were accompanied with interesting and humourous stories of people he came across on his travels. Interiors of old cottages
followed with eerie abandoned dolls, prams, an old bent bike with canvas tyres, cobwebbed bottles on filthy window ledges,
old yellowing newspapers, a rusty sewing machine, an old settee dumped in overgrown land and at Tanfield, textured rusty
chains, nuts and bolts.
Included were story telling images taken at Eldon Square Armistice Day of old timers and veterans with medals. Then WWII
re-enactment shots of jeeps, tanks, pilots, nurses, lands girls, and remarkably realistic battle scenes together with scenes of
the Sealed Knot, English civil war costume re-enactment. Abstract monochrome silhouetted figures at the Tate Modern, gritty
graffiti and murals captured in Glasgow and London and the alien like, eerie Anthony Gormley figures at Crosby beach, were
among the varied subjects. John included atmospheric shots of old fishermen’s sheds at Dungeness, wrecked and beached
rusty ships, decaying lighthouses, boathouses and skeletal trees in the mist, following on with stunning infra red shots taken
at Fountains Abbey and Gibside and scenes of Snowdonia with its ever changing light on the mountains and valleys together
with a graphic ploughed field with yellow rape seed on the horizon.
Portraits of people with a transient lifestyle came next, bearded buskers, sad characters living on the streets, lying in shop
doorways, hard faces filled with sadness with dirty hands and nails, sleeping off the effects of drugs, beggars and tattooed
down at heel characters with expressions of despair. There were detailed facial expressions of horse dealers, wrinkled smoking fishermen, quirky musicians at the Americana Festival, characterful red faced, spiky haired farmers at agricultural shows and
bedraggled horses and riders at Appleby Horse Fair. Throughout the evening John had the audience laughing out loud with
humorous anecdotes of his fathers experiences with a Blaydon Council steam roller, his eccentric neighbour who dresses in
German national costume, and conversations with characters he had come across whilst taking his photographs. Detailed
portraits depicted the sadness and despair of people dispossessed, his interiors portrayed squalor and abandonment, his
landscapes were dark, moody and atmospheric; ‘Angels with Dirty Faces’ was a very apt title for this presentation.
Club Chairman, Mark Harrison thanked John for a very interesting show after which a selection of his prints were on display
for club members to enjoy over coffee.
Steph.