Friday 11 July 2014

Solitude Under the Safelight (with thanks to the Whitch Hunter)


Young Conceptual Beasts, Faversham 2012


Villa Medici, Memoria del Mármol, Roma 2010


The Child Thief, Colombia 1975


Glorious Rome


From the Memory Suitcase


Many thanks to Kelly Abbott for her generosity


I am indebted to Kelly Abbott, to her generous and friendly gesture. Kelly, out of the blue and without prompting of any kind, presented me with some beautiful photographic relics.
Kelly is the mother of Canterbury College BTEC graduate Tate Abbott, and who by sheer happenstance I happened to see as I walked through a hilly street in the town of Margate.
Tate and Kelly are like a copy of the same negative and their physical resemblance caught my eye. I yelled out from across the street if she was the mother and she said yes. And then we met.
She runs a quaint shop called Margate Retro General Store, and invited me to see some amazing glass plates she had in her possession, beautiful photographic documents from the 1930's. She knew I am a photography teacher in college.
Looking thorough some of these wonderful historical documents I fell in love with a few of the portraits, all ancient glass negatives. Had I been a landscape man I would have gone crazy from the richness of her stock.
Next thing I know she is asking me to choose which ones I wanted for myself and when I offered to buy them she issued a firm no.
She offered them to me as a present. This after having invited me and my children to some lemonade from a large jar she kept handy. This from a woman I had just met five minutes before.
I thank her for her generosity and now I share here for all to see.






Early Evening Walk