“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective”.

Irving Penn

Childhood Memories of Blackpool series

When I was young, our holiday destination for so many reasons was Blackpool. It was the centre for top entertainment in the UK. The numerous attractions included the famous Pleasure Beach, the seafront with the North, Central and South Piers. The number one attraction was the Tower with its circus, Aquarium and Ballroom. In the evenings you could pick from dozens of world famous shows, it really was hard to beat. The happy times I spent there left me with many vivid memories which I felt I wanted to recreate using a pinhole camera fitted with a zone plate, as I felt the softness of the image suited my memories perfectly. The early images were taken on transparency film, but as this became more difficult to buy and process I began to use negative film.

When I decided to kick start the project recently, I wanted to redesign the camera I used to make it lighter and combine the best features of all the cameras I had used. Previous models were made of wood but for this version I decided on thin aluminium sheet folded to form the body which housed the customised 'guts' from a 120 size Box Brownie. These workings had been cut in half and extended to change the format from 6cm x 6cms to 12 cms x 6 cms giving a very pleasing panoramic format and a very respectable six shots from a 120 film. I also re-used the wind on knob and tripod screw from the Brownie. Finally the little red window was added to enable me to accurately advance the film. The design worked very well and wound the film on smoothly. A slight light leak around the back was solved with a couple of strips of black tape.

One aspect of working on a project like this is you get to better understand where many of your influences come from and of course many of them can be traced back to your childhood. You often fail to realise where they come from, but they continue to appear in your ideas. I have often used neon lights and street lights particularly set against sunsets in my work, and happy to use the longer exposures they require. This came as no surprise to me because of the images from Blackpool when I was young just sat there in my memories quietly influencing my photographic work.

The picture above was one of the first I produced for this project. I took the image from the balcony of the Ballroom and shows the famous dance floor. The dancers barely register on the film as they move around the floor. The ghostly images seem to represent the dancers from the past and remind me of hours spent watching the daytime dancers gliding effortlessly to the music of the famous Wurlitzer organ.

One of the strongest memories from visiting Blackpool as a child involved riding donkeys on the sands and the distinctive sound of their bells. I took some fairly straightforward images of some close up, (image below), but later in the day I was walking along the front and suddenly the sun broke through the clouds back lighting this group in what is known as Contre-Jour, literally against the day in French. The exposure can be quite challenging and although I had to work very quickly, it worked and I really like the final image.

 This image above reminds me so much of many wet afternoons spent in our hotel room. These little shops, which seemed to be everywhere in Blackpool, were full of toys, jokes and novelties and were exciting for me when the weather could be less than tropical. I suppose being an only child meant that I was happy to entertain myself so rain or shine there was always something to entertain us kids in these magical shops. Sadly the last time I found the shop it had been boarded up for many years.

The result of this picture  really surprised me. I remember my grandfather buying me rock from a stall on the front on the way home. After speaking with the man when I took the picture he told me the stall was one of the oldest on the front and dated back to the fifties, which meant it was very likely the one my grandfather bought the rock from. More surprisingly the man's image appeared slightly distorted given the wide format of my camera, this turned the slim man into the more generous outline of my grandfather, who also wore a panama hat in the summer! A very emotional result for me, and typical of the surprises that pinhole cameras can often give you.

I like this image of a corner of the ironwork of the South Pier. The piers are such a feature of the town, and even to this day I find them so exciting reaching out into the sea as they do. But it equally amazes me how they survive the battering they get from the weather. I took this picture early one morning when the tide was out revealing the strength and beauty of ironwork under the pier.

In this shot I used the green illuminations in the foreground to add depth and interest to the view of the Funfair near the South Pier. It required a two minute exposure to allow the lights to expose themselves into the film and is always a challenge. Although I am not really a fan of the rides at the Funfair, the excitement of the place is wonderful to watch and is typical of the resort.

The wonderful old penny arcades were yet another vivid memory of times spent in Blackpool, particularly in the tower where hundreds filled the walls. Scenes of graveyards, ghosts and executions as well as games of chance offered so much entertainment for a penny. To me as a young boy they were magical and gave me hours of fun, yet sadly they failed to impress subsequent generations and as a result have not survived. I found this particular example of what they call pushers in the arcades, in the wonderful Penny Arcade who still use the old copper pennies, at the end of Southport Pier.

The wind in as ever present in Blackpool and something I have always enjoyed. For me the sun can shine or the wind can blow but there was always something to do, see and enjoy. I took this picture when the wind was indeed blowing and keeping everything still for the five second exposure was something of a challenge. The violence of the sea crashing against the North Pier in this case becomes a far more graceful scene.