John's interest in photography started during his school days when he was in his mid teens. John was at a boarding school evacuated to the Cumbria Coast at St, Bees during the war. With victory in Europe the school wasted no time in returning to its home in North London. It was well equipped and had managed to keep most of its facilities, including a dark room, all through the war years, when the school had been used as a hospital for the services. Although he did not have a camera he found himself making prints from the negatives of some of his fellow pupils.
The fascination of seeing, in dark room lighting, a picture grow like magic from a blank sheet of paper made a lasting impression on him. In spite of the attractions of the mighty micro chip, John still makes the effort, {he thinks} perhaps not often enough, to set up a dark room and do some "real" photography, as John says - Black and White of course!
University, trying to carve out a career, playing for a local Northumberland Rugby Club and one or two girl friends distracted him for a few brief years until one day his then girl friend, now happily his wife for more than 50 years said to him "Why don't you get a camera?". Several cameras and thousands of negatives and slides later, perhaps his good lady is still wondering what inspired her to ask that question!
John feels sure that his interest was serious for photography for its own sake and the fact that it could record, with some accuracy events, places and people, was an added bonus. One regret John has is not taking more photos in connection with the mining industry and the people working in it, as he spent many years in a privileged position to do so.
John joined Esh Winning Camera Club in 1959, when he moved there to manage Waterhouses Colliery. He kept in contact with that Camera Club when not close enough to be a member, particularly through his friend Bob Winter and in his earlier years with Tom Melrose, President and one of the founder members of the club. It was Tom with his pin sharp 20 x 16 prints who persuaded him to buy a Leica for which he shall always be grateful. At that time the "M" series Leicas were replacing the old traditional screw Leicas and it was possible to buy these old screw lens mounted cameras at a reasonable price.
During the twelve years John was living in South Wales he joined the Bridgend Camera Club and was its Treasurer for some years. John rejoined Esh Winning as soon as possible when he returned to the North East in 1985. He also joined the Chester-le-Street Camera Club. John is currently Chairman of the latter and was, for about three years, Programme Secretary of the former. In addition to conventional local clubs, John was until recently a member of four different Leica Societies, one of which he joined forty-five years ago, namely the Leica Postal Portfolios, arguably the oldest Leica Club in the world. John was Chairman of LPP for thirteen years and General Secretary for eight years. He is also a member of a postal circle within the RPS.
John does not have what he would regard as interesting or special equipment and has no specialised subject for photography, except perhaps portraits of which, for the past twenty years, he has had the good fortune to take the official portraits of the Presidents of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. Actually it was nineteen of those years that John took the pictures and on the other occasion he had his picture taken by Bob Winter for the collection. These portraits are hung in the lecture theatre of the Institute where some portraits must be nearly 150 years old. John would like to think that his prints will hang there for the next 150 years. At this stage he will not risk digital prints!
John thinks that some competitions are quite a good thing, provided that they are not taken too seriously. John is naturally pleased if he gets a place or wins a competition but he does not worry if the judge does not like any of his photographs. When John sees some of his photographs used in publications it gives him more pleasure than winning competitions but he seldom gets recognition.
John has a preference for prints to slides but both have their place. He does not have any plans for long term projects but he would like to put most of his mining photographs on CDs with spoken commentaries, hopefully, one of these days he will find the time to do this.
Editor.