6 November, 2015
A weird coincidence occurs shortly after Colin O’Brien and I sit down for a coffee in Hackney PictureHouse, just across the road from where his photos formed part of the Migration Museum Museum’s first exhibition of 100 Images of Migration at Hackney Museum. A young man, George Nelson, sits down at our table and, spying the books Colin has laid out in front of us, apologises for intruding on our conversation – but he has to show us the image he has open on his phone. It’s the front cover of Colin’s book, Travellers’ Children in London Fields, which George (a photographer himself, it emerges) has just been recommending to a contact. There follows a conversation in which George expresses his admiration for Colin’s work, and Colin, generous and courteous as ever, asks questions about George’s work. Throughout it all, Colin seems completely unfazed by the coincidence or the praise, making no big deal about either.
The cover photo for Colin’s “Travellers’ Children in London Fields”, 1987 – ‘I took many pictures over a period of three weeks and they took me into their confidence. It was only when I started to print the images that I realised what an amazing set of photographs they were.’
Making no big deal about it is not a bad way of summing up Colin’s approach to his work. He’s certainly made no big deal about it in terms of money, though he is entirely without bitterness on that account. ‘When I was starting out,’ he says, ‘there were two routes open to you if you wanted to make it big as a photographer. You could become a war photographer, as Don McCullin did, but I was too scared to do that; or you could do a David Bailey and become a celebrity photographer – but I just wasn’t interested in that world.’ In fact, Colin never became a photographer as such, not in the professional sense. All his photography was done in the margins of his working life, which was spent as a media resources technician for the ILEA and the GLC, and at the London College of Printing. For two hours or so every day, though, he would walk the streets with his camera, taking photographs of people who interested him.
Cowboy and Girlfriend, Bolton, 1960 – ’Because I kept very bad records in the old days I thought that the picture had been taken in London, but a very nice lady wrote to me and told me that it was taken in Bolton. She named the very street, long since been demolished – she said Bolton was now a mess! It has probably been one of my most liked images.‘
He’s been taking photographs almost all his life. His Uncle Will gave him a box camera when Colin was eight years old (one of the photographs he took with this camera is in 100 Images: ‘Raymond Scallione and Joe Bacuzzi’, two boys posing with Italian magnificence on the bonnet of a black Ford in 1948), he had a Leica at the age of 14, has had more than 30 exhibitions in the course of his lifetime and is still – now well into his 70s – taking photos, both digital and film, and processing and printing his work in the traditional way in a darkroom.
Hatton Garden, 1948 – ‘Raymond Scallione and his friend, Joe Bacuzzi, pose for me in this photograph taken when I was eight years old.’
In theory he’s retired but he has provided the photographs to more than 50 of the famous Spitalfields Life blog, he has just completed a new exhibition called London Life (beautifully recreated in a book published by Spitalfields Life and available on their site) and he has a new project lined up, on West End life, which he is undertaking with a young photographer, Alex Pink. You get the impression that Colin is not putting the lens cap back on his camera any day soon.
Burgess Park Lake, Old Kent Road, 1984 – ‘I’d photographed these girls before. They sat on a bench beside this man who had been following them around and, when I raised my camera again, each of them pulled a funny face and poked their tongues out.’
Brief snippets of his life emerge in the course of our talk. Although he has no trace of an Irish accent (apparently one emerged somewhat unexpectedly, and to the great amusement of his friends, in the course of an interview on the Robert Elms radio show), he is proud to describe himself as of Irish extraction, his grandparents having moved to England from Ireland in the late 19th century. His childhood was spent in London during what he calls the ‘threadbare years’, the last years of the war and the half-decade that followed. His adolescence was mostly playing football in the park with an impressive roster of future writers (Bill Naughton, Frederic Raphael and Brian Glanville among them), and he celebrated narrowly missing out on national service by ‘bumming around’ in his 20s. He had the opportunity to photograph the Beatles before they were famous (he used to take photographs for Dick James, the music publisher who took over Northern Songs) but turned it down, because he was too busy – or maybe, I wonder, because he had a foretaste of their future fame, and wasn’t interested. And all the time he was doing what inspired him, the real job his 9 to 5 job allowed him the time and space to do (when he wasn’t studying for a degree and a masters): taking pictures on the streets of London, capturing the passing scene of an ever-changing city.
Comings and Goings, 1986 – Corner of Bacon Street and Brick Lane, Spitalfields
It’s clearly not the money that motivates him. Most of his exhibitions and publications he has paid for himself. And he’s not, as we’ve seen, interested in fame. His photography is an act of kinship similar to his involvement in community projects and campaigns such as the fight to save the Marquis of Lansdowne or the attempt to prevent the development of Norton Folgate. Something similar motivates him to continue taking his camera out on the street – an insatiable curiosity for, and an empathetic engagement in, other people’s lives. I’m guessing here, because this grandiose kind of phrase isn’t likely to be what Colin would say. His account would be something along the lines of ‘I just like people’, and maybe it is just that. Certainly there appears to be no distance, literally and metaphorically, between Colin and his subjects: his photos are imbued with a rare warmth and generosity.
Wandsworth, 1973 – ‘These boys knew how to make good use of old pram wheels!’
Ah yes, that generosity. The books he’s brought with him are for me – an act of unassuming kindness on his part that touches me deeply. When I am flicking through the books later, making notes for this blog and trying to work out why his images have such emotional heft, it is this I come back to: his generosity, his engagement in other people’s lives, his sense that nothing divides us – we are all in this together.
Junction of Clerkenwell Road and Farringdon Road, 11 June 1962 – ‘I read later that a child died in this accident. There was a rumour that the traffic lights malfunctioned, and all turned green at the same time.’
Colin O’Brien’s photos can be viewed on his website, colinobrien.co.uk. His latest book, London Life, is published by Spitalfields Life Books and is available from all good bookstores and on the Spitalfields Life site.
23 October, 2015
In the third of our features on photographers who have contributed to our 100 Images of Migration exhibition, we feature the work of Guy Corbishley, who submitted the photos of ‘Speaker’s Corner’ and ‘EDL protest’, two images that form part of what Guy calls his ‘continuing work exploring protest, politics, diverse cultures, human rights and the modern-day migration experience in Britain’. Both photographs are regular favourites with visitors to the exhibition, many of whom appreciate the ability of ‘EDL Protest’ in particular to draw three elements of this experience – the police presence, the EDL protesters and the young British Asian woman – in a composition that hovers uncertainly between dark and light. The same charge pulses through the photos Guy has selected for this blog, all of them stunning compositions which are never quite as straightforward as they first look. Needless to say, we are thrilled to be able to feature Guy’s photographs and deeply grateful to him for his involvement in our project.
Guy has provided a brief note on himself and captions to the photographs that follow.
Introducing my photos
I’m a full-time freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer. Currently I divide my time between working in London and abroad, supplying editorial, commercial and cultural imagery to a wide range of clients and publications in this country and across the world. One of my long-term personal projects involves documenting the last remaining Orthodox Pilgrims of Grabarka in east Poland and covering the geo-political conflicts of Ukraine/Euromaidan.
You can e-mail me for more details: my address is at the end of this blog.
Every year thousands of Orthodox Christian pilgrims arrive at the holy mount of Grabarka in east Poland, some journeying many hundreds of kilometres by foot. The pilgrims gather at Grabarka Hill to celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration in August. The hill and church are the holiest location for Poland’s few remaining Orthodox Christians.
The Euromaidan is the name given to a wave of demonstrations and protests in Ukraine. These began on the night of 21 November 2013, when a large number of public protests demanded closer integration with Europe. The protests evolved into deadly riots that claimed more than 100 lives and led to the removal of President Yanukovych and his government.
British-based Ukrainians march and rally for peace in central London on National Vyshyvanka Day. Dressed in Vyshyvanka – the traditional Ukrainian ethnic embroidered dress, which includes floral head wreaths – the marchers demonstrate adherence to the idea of national identity, unity and patriotism.
British-based Eastern Orthodox Christians, predominantly of Russian origin, gather outside the Russian church (Diocese of Sourozh) in Knightsbridge, London, where Bishop Elisey gives his Easter blessings to their Pascha (Easter) baskets containing decorated eggs and cakes.
Campaigners, families of detainees and former detainees demonstrate outside Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre, Middlesex. Their protest is against the process increasingly used to fast-track the deportation of asylum seekers from the UK. The civil rights activist group Movement for Justice and its supporters are campaigning for the closure of the detention centre and the launch of a full public inquiry into the alleged physical, sexual and mental abuse of detainees, which many of their complaint reports have documented.
Two Muslim women take a break and prepare for noon prayers during protests outside the Egyptian Embassy in London. The protests were part of the demonstrations across the world, known as the Arab Spring uprising.
6-year-old Inka reads names from the Polish war memorial in South Ruislip, London. Every year British-based Poles march and hold service at the war memorial in commemoration of the ‘Cursed Soldiers’. The Cursed Soldiers (or Doomed Soldiers) were a partisan group battling for independence in the later stages of the Second World War and afterwards against the communists. Inka was named after Danuta ‘Inka’ Siedzikowna, 1928–47, a medical orderly in the 4th Squadron of the Polish Home Army.
Local Muslim girls help out during the 35th London Marathon as it passes down Deptford’s Evelyn Street, south-east London.
Antonia Bright, from the civil rights activist group Movement for Justice, leads a protest outside Holloway prison in north London. Protesters were calling for the release of a female inmate who had been imprisoned after being beaten by a prison guard (since suspended) while she was protesting at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre against the deportation of a fellow detainee.
Veteran Gurkha Corporal Dilbahadur Thapa, 83, who served in the 10th Gurkha Rifles Regiment from 1948 to 1961, is reunited with a replica of his original war medal on the seventh day of a hunger strike opposite Downing Street in London. The hunger strike was carried out by two groups of Gurkhas – Gurkha Satyagraha and the BWHR British Gurkha Project –before being temporarily suspended by Lord Ahmed, who agreed to intervene and take up matters with Whitehall and Philip Hammond MP, Secretary of State for Defence. BWHR British Gurkha Project is calling for Gurkhas to be awarded British citizenship rather than settlement rights, which would entitle them to service pensions and to have their children come to live with them from Nepal. Currently pension rights for ex-Gurkha soldiers differ from those of the British soldiers with whom they served. Some Gurkha veterans receive no pension.
A local Sikh man crosses the road to place flowers on Wellington Street in south-east London the day after Royal Fusilier solider Lee Rigby was murdered by Islamic extremists.
British-based Ukrainians staged continuous solidarity protests throughout London as part of the 2014 Euromaidan demonstrations. Opposite the Russian Embassy there was a small measure of rejoicing at the news that the jailed opposition leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, had recently been released from custody in Kharkiv. The Euromaidan is the name given to a wave of demonstrations and protests in Ukraine which began on the night of 21 November 2013, when a large number of public protests demanded closer integration with Europe. The protests evolved into deadly riots that claimed more than 100 lives and led to the removal of President Yanukovych and his government.
Performers of Molodyi Teatr (Young Theatre) perform the play ‘Bloody East Europeans’ at the Ukrainian Institute in London, satirising the eastern European migrant experience in the UK. The play was written by Uilleam Blacker and directed by Olesya Khromeychuk.
On 24 February 2014 a few hundred British-based Poles rallied opposite Downing Street in London to protest against the on-going discrimination of Polish people living in the UK. The protest highlighted the recent attack on a Polish biker in London who had been assaulted for displaying the Polish flag on his helmet. The protesters also raised other issues raised such as populist politicians, David Cameron among them, who used Polish and other eastern European migrants as scapegoats for a faltering economy.
Guy Corbishley
guycorb@gmail.com
9 October, 2015
On Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 October, at the University of Sheffield’s ‘Migrants in the City’ conference at Cutler’s Hall, there’s a sneak preview of a project by Jeremy Abrahams that is going to be shown in full in 2016. In this guest blog, Jeremy explains the background to his project and what he was hoping it would show.
‘We are all immigrants: it simply depends how far back you go.’
Robert Winder (2005) Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain.
London: Abacus
In Bloody Foreigners, Robert Winder tells a lovely tale of the origin of the name of John O’Groats, the northernmost tip of mainland Britain. The name of the village is not, as you might think, Scottish, nor Irish, but is actually derived from Jan de Groot, a Dutchman who arrived in south-east England but moved north to start a ferry service between Scotland and Orkney. Winder’s point, of course, is that immigration has always been a part of our history, and always will be. What seems to change is attitudes towards it.
At the end of 2013 I was new to professional photography and looking for a personal project. As someone born here but whose family came from Lithuania in the nineteenth century, immigration was uppermost in my thoughts. Partly inspired by a friend who came to Sheffield from Prague on the Kindertransport in 1939, leaving her family behind, I decided to photograph one person who migrated from overseas to Sheffield in every year from 1939 to 2016. This was to be my ‘Arrivals’ project.
Each subject chooses where in Sheffield they would like their picture to be taken. So ‘Arrivals’ is a portrait of the city, of the pattern of migration and of 77 individuals, documenting and celebrating the diversity of Sheffield’s population.
Of course, an image can say something about the subject’s life, but it cannot fully explain why they left their country of origin and came to Sheffield. So each subject’s image is accompanied by a short piece of text – in their own voice – which enhances the visual story and makes us aware of the uniqueness of each person’s experience.
Like most major urban areas of the UK, Sheffield has substantial communities of Afro-Caribbean and Asian origin.
George Grant arrived from Jamaica in 1965. ‘’I’m the youngest of 10 children. My dad – a joiner – came to Sheffield with my oldest sister in 1960 and I came with my mum and five other siblings five years later. When I was a little older, Sheffield United wanted to sign me as a schoolboy, but I didn’t fancy all the training; I just like playing.”
Mohammed Younis arrived from Pakistan in 1958. “My grandfather came before the Second World War, my father came in 1952 and I arrived from Pakistan as an 11 year old in 1958. In 1967 I joined the council’s Youth Service and in time completed my education, attending the universities of Durham, Manchester and Bradford, achieving an MA in International Politics and Security Studies at the latter.”
Sheffield, as the first ‘City of Sanctuary’, has a track record of welcoming refugees whose stories reflect the troubles in their countries of origin. Many refugees from the Pinochet dictatorship settled in Sheffield during the 1970s.
Isilda Lang arrived from Chile in 1977. “As a refugee escaping political persecution it was terrible to suffer torture, fear and nightmares of persecution. Being displaced from the place you were born is not easy, because you have to readjust to everything, practically to be reborn. The language was the hardest thing to learn – it took me five years to have the confidence to speak English. I was part of the Red Cross when another tragedy happened in my life: the Hillsborough disaster of April 1989, where I worked alongside doctors and nurses on the day.”
More recent events around the world have also brought people to Sheffield.
Habib Josefi arrived from Afghanistan in 2005. “The day I was told that I could live in England was the happiest of my life – I would no longer be forced to move from country to country in search of sanctuary. My family had been forced to flee from Afghanistan to Iran three times as regimes changed and foreigners intervened in the country. When the Taliban took over, I was forced to flee yet again. I moved around the world trying to find a permanent home, spending time in Iran, Turkey and Russia before finding temporary sanctuary in Cuba. I learned Spanish well enough to register for a university course and was halfway through my first year when I was told I must find somewhere else to go. That somewhere was the UK, which accepted me as a refugee.”
Of course the free movement of labour within the EU has also brought new Arrivals.
Magdalena Garpiel arrived from Poland in 2006. “My husband Adam and I were running a successful business with a partner in Bielsko-Biala when we decided to leave Poland. We wanted to learn another language and meet new people – a new adventure.”
And finally, the story of a young woman who came to Sheffield as a student, to find herself separated from her family during the bombing of Gaza by Israel in 2014.
Malaka Mohammed Shwaik Arrived from Gaza in 2013 “In 2013 I was given a fee waiver to study for a Masters in Global Politics and Law at Sheffield University. Travelling here from Gaza/Palestine was not easy. I experienced humiliation and discrimination many times when I tried to cross the border from Gaza. It took me some time to start engaging with the community around me, but since those early days I have spoken in many conferences throughout Europe to raise awareness of the situation in Palestine.”
Jeremy Abrahams
‘Arrivals’ project: www.jeremyabrahams.co.uk/arrivals
Subjects are still needed! Please contact me on info@jeremyabrahams.co.uk
A small number of ‘Arrivals’ images can be seen at the University of Sheffield’s ‘Migrants in the City’ conference at Cutler’s Hall on Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 October 2015.
The full ‘Arrivals’ exhibition will open at Weston Park Museum in Sheffield in late summer 2016.
