Interview from Top Color, Hessle Road, 23rd Jan 2025:
“These are my contact strips from the work I did in Hull in early 80’s when I first met Daniel. He had a profound effect on what I did with my life. I think these would make a good exhibition in Hull in the 1980’s. They sum it up, it goes across all that was happening.
No one has ever seen them really, I took them when I was young and starting out. They are important history, and personal history too. People in them, some went on to do important things in music and life. Porky Dj and Fila Brazillia for example.
I was on Foundation at Hull and wanted to make movies. 6 months in I didn’t do movies but opted for photos instead. I bumped into Mark Walkers and Han Foo Yung, who were on graphics and they introduced me to Daneil Meadows and russel Boyce. Russel, like me, was in Fine Art but had met Daniel and was taking photos. It was the start. After foundation I followed them both to Newport to do the documentary course Daniel had set up after hull with David Hurn
The chinagraph on the contact sheets is Daniels – he liked to use red. When I met him I showed him and he crit’d the work. I did this for 4 months. My foundation staff Rodney Macky found me later on and said – where have you been? We’ve not seen you. I showed them this work and they said wow amazing. These photos were in my final show. The one of Kandy was also selected for “Young Ones’ at ffoto gallery in Cardiff in 1984. Sir Tom Hopkinson the famous picture editor and Mike Steele of Getty Images selected it.
Why photography?
It was quick and you met people, making art you never met anyone. I saw the world, I met the world through a camera. I met Desmond Tutu who came to Hull when South Africa was in Apartheid. I knew someone from the South African community, who introduced me.
The Lips and Lashes was taken at the Adelphi. They were funny, lots of innuendo and slapstick. They jumped into the audience and were riotous. I had learnt about relationship shots, I’d seen David Hurns 1960s photos and thought I could do better. Hence this photo of them looking like this.
Kandy was taken at The Tower on Anlaby Road. I just used to look in the Hull Daily Mail for things that were on and then go and ask if I could take photos. I used to just turn up. Mr Muscle was the same! Kandy was more of a performance pic, him just stood in costume. Kandy was more understated and poignant. Like when he undressed. His act was so different to Lips and Lashes
I was interested in alternative cultures and youth, punk, skinheads, teddy boys, drag. When I went to Cardiff, I used to come home and take photos in Hull. I was young and the things I liked made good pictures – the music I liked and the people I liked. Many ska/skinheads had bad press, but I met some in the Tudor Cafe. They had a reputation for being bovver boys, for being thugs. They were nice kids actually. I was just taking photos, i wasn’t technically accomplished, but was what it is.
I wanted to represent the truth, to tell a different story than stereotypes. I remember reading that the Rhonda Valley was the worst place in the world! It was like Hull, I was going against stereotypes. Not many people were photographing people in Wales when I went there. In Hull there were lots of people because of the course and Daniel – 6 or 7 photographers.
People from poor backgrounds weren’t taking photos though. There weren’t many people like me. Tish Murtha was from a working class background.
I wanted to get good at doing it, make a living, to keep at it and practice. And I’ve never been able to stop. After Newport I did more portraits, one of my photos of Peter Blake is in the National Portrait Gallery. I left college and started taking photos of music people. Daniel and Daivd were disappointed because I was there on their course
So what’s on these contacts?
There’s the Ambulance Service and the Blind Institute. That was the last day of Leroy the basketmaker, he was retiring at 65!. His baskets were really collectable.
There’s 2 cafes and CND protest and Major Nuttall – I got in with them and was living on the inside and so got these photos. Punk Sharon with giant Red hair. The Warren and skinheads. Billy Berry the Hull celebrity tramp – i chatted to him and gave him my money, he lived on the streets for 30 years. Rugby League, Fishing docks, and filleters. Lips and Lashes , Candy. There’s Derrick who was part of the Throbbing Gristle and Poll Tax protest outside GUildhall.
The bodybuilder comp and the Tower. Ha, this was when people like Arnold Schwarzenegger was famous and people were doing that. I saw that in the Hull paper too and went backstage. Funnily one of them was someone from my school!
At Newport Daniel taught us about doing picture stories.. 12 pictures… man at work, relationship, portrait, establishing shot,… i can’t remember the rest. We started with 12 shots and then had to edit down to a 3 picture story. We did 3 in colour, 3 in Black and white. The colour was on slide that was so expensive to use and process. I was 4K in debt at the end of degree in 1986! I met a Tattooist in Newport, in an area that was meant to be no go! He let me take photos and I went all over with him. We went to Wild West weekends in Potins and he did rituals like an American Indian….! But after college I couldn’t make any money doing picture stories.
Who are you influenced by?
I was really influenced by Harry Callahan colour photos, he’d followed Stieglitz influence
In early times I was looking at Bill Brandt, David Bailey, Don McCullin, Ian Berry and David Hurn..Now I look at Irving Penn, Harry, and Probert Flack. The overall influence was Henri Cartier Bresson. You have to remember I have an art background, I was influenced by that way of looking. I was also influenced by what I came across, what was on the radio, music wise. College expanded my horizons. I had a limited sphere of reference.
I never really wanted to be a photographer, I wanted to be in a band, all the bands had been to art school. I wanted to be Bob Dylan, people complained when I sang in an American accent, people complained if I sang normally. So I fell into it. When I stopped in 2002 I turned to printing and did that. Then my mother gave me a small digital camera and I knew it was fatal, as soon as I picked it up I was hooked again.
Now I can see the importance of legacy, and showing people, no one has really seen anything.
HU3?
My whole family are Spring Bank, Willoughby Road, Hessle Road people. I used to go to Rayners as a kid. My uncle was a skipper. My grandads were bricklayers or worked in abattoir. My dad was a rugby star. All of them were driven by alcohol. Precarity was bred into people. You’d get wild men drinkers. I grew up surrounded by wild people. I noticed when they were not drinking they were quiet, then in the pub they’d sing and dance. When people were drinking it was a “me being me” type of thing. They lived for the moment, rather and be secure, lived a bit wild, being wild meant, free and in tune with nature. Living for the moment. Living fast. If there wasn’t death near through fishing they would be quite conservative. This is typical working class behavior. Upper class, I like them, they have a similar way. Middle class are obsessed with money, talking about it and making it. Us we live for the day.
