Brett is a HU3/Hull born and based photographer. He studied foundation at Humberside College of Higher Education before following Daniel Meadows to Newport to study Documentary Photography there. Brett photographed working class venues and spaces in Hull in the early to mid 80s. He took photos of Kandy de Barry and Lips and Lashes that sadly have never been shown publicly.
After his BA in Newport he went on to take portraits of bands, musicians and well known people. His work is held in national collections.
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. They sum it up, it goes across all that was happening….Lips and Lashes, the drag act that I photographed that was something totally different to me and Kandy he was something totally different to me too, I’d never seen anything like that…The one of Kandy was also selected for “Young Ones’ at ffoto gallery in Cardiff in 1984. Sir Tom Hopkinson the famous picture editor selected it.
I used the college camera which was a Yashika and then a friend Mark who was on the graphics course during the last year of a degree he said you should get your own camera and this is a really good camera and Olympus OM 2…I had to take it back and they said we ant got any more, but we can give you the earlier version with 10 pound off so I got an OM 1 and that’s what I shot everything with. That’s the camera I used throughout the 80s and into the 90s..
Click the red arrow to listen to Brett’s oral history
