PL Travers

By shendyNo Comments
Completely coincidentally with the release of the new Mary Poppins film, I was sorting through some of my dad's photos over Christmas when I noticed that one the black & white films from October 1955 mentioned PL Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books. And there, towards the end was this one frame... PL Travers, bottom right My aunt confirmed that it is her - the photo was taken at the Symons' house in Gloucester Gate near Regent's Park. The Symons were friends of the family, and I have a vague memory of visiting them there in the 1970s - something to do with being allowed to play underneath a grand piano, or something like that. My cousin apparently met her when he was 6 months old. One thing that occurred to me is that PL Travers probably reduces my Bacon Number quite significantly (see Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) - me to my dad, to PL Travers, to Walt Disney, to anyone...
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Guided Tour part 2 – People

By shendyNo Comments
The other part of the site that has got the most attention is the sets of photos from Kings Road in Chelsea, taken between 1967 and 1975 -a time of such fantastic changes in the fashion scene - swinging 60s through to the less renowned 70s. However bad the 70s fashions got, it's still a great record of what real people were wearing. The one shot that always catches my eye is this one. The first thing I thought was "Bay City Rollers", and you'd be so wrong. They hit it big in 1974-75-76, while this photo was taken in July 1973. Far from being trend-setters, they were a good 2 years behind the fashion. Unfortunately there is nothing remotely like this to add to the "People" section - it's basically the only street photography my dad ever did - and I'm not quite sure what else to add. The obvious additions is a "Family" section - the big advantage of having all of his photos is that I...
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Some time travel experimentation

By shendyNo Comments
I had an email the other day from a chap called Paul Campbell, who had been looking at the King's Road photos and had bit of a play with Google Street View - and look what he came up with. I've seen this sort of thing done before with things like wartime scenes, but these are really cool. Thank you Paul, and do please let me know if you do any more and I'll happily share them....
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Exhibition

By shendyNo Comments
A few months ago I was contacted by the Proud Gallery in Chelsea to ask if they could use some of my dad's photos in an upcoming exhibition based around Ossie Clark, the 1960's fashion designer. I am very pleased to say that from the 21st February to the 10th March, Proud Chelsea will be hosting "Ossie Clark: The King of the King’s Road Reigns Again", featuring four of my dad's photos. He would have been thrilled / stunned / gobsmacked to know that some of his pictures are being exhibited alongside the likes of Norman Parkinson's, someone whose work he most definitely knew and liked. There's also a bit about it in Time Out. The pictures are being made available to buy in a limited edition of 25 each - these are only available via the gallery....
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Derngate

By shendy1 Comment
In 1977 my father took a series of photos for Northampton High School, a private school for girls that at the time was based in Derngate, as part of their centenary celebrations - a number of the images appeared in their centenary magazine. I'm not quite sure how he got the gig though - quite possibly an amateur dramatics contact....
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Portraits

By shendyNo Comments
During this period, my father was still going to the camera club, and there are quite a number of photos of young ladies who seem unable to keep all (and indeed sometimes any) of their clothes on. This one is quite different, not least because it wasn't that kind of photo session - I think she was a member of the theatre group.  I think it's rather a good picture - a bit unusual....
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