How We Are

Photographing Britain

Tate Britain. 22nd May-2nd September 2007

Roger Mayne

Girl jiving in the Southam Street W10. 1957

This large and varied show opens windows onto many different worlds but I will just mention some things that particularly caught my eye.

In the first section which focuses on early pioneers of photography from 1840 onwards, I found myself peering with interest at pairs of small, sepia prints of Barnado boys. They are each posed first in a ragged state, straight off the street and then later ‘reformed’ as smartly dressed apprentices in various trades. The sceptic in me wonders by what means this transformation, exemplifying the ideals of nineteenth century charity, was really brought about?

I looked with similar wariness at a set of photos from the 1850s, of women detained in the Female Department of the Surrey Lunatic Asylum documented for ‘scientific interest’. Most of the individual women look frail and pathetic apart from one who stands boldly and healthily defiant, with her arms folded. One gazes at such images only too aware that the story behind them is unknown.

Another photographic record held my attention for some time. It is, of a group of men amputated after the First World War. In one picture they are seated in a row, propped up and neatly dressed in their hospital suits, while in the next they have been ‘rehabilitated’, and are standing stiffly on artificial limbs – pictures that speak eloquently of the tragedy of war. I found myself studying the expressions on the faces that seemed to betray so little and wondering about the lives those men subsequently led.

Taken as a whole the exhibition successfully demonstrates not only the technical innovations in photography but also the differences in emphasis and mood of various eras. For instance, what a contrast between the style of elegant simplicity affected by fashion plates of the 1930s, and the dramatic close-ups of punks from the 1980s in their gothic-horror style make up. Many different themes can also be traced but one that particularly interested me was women’s participation, not only as photographers but also as political activists seen in some interesting portraits of suffragettes and in Jane Brown’s pictures of women camped on Greenham Common.

Photos from a 1940s book, ‘Women Go to War’ have been digitally scanned and projected as slides. They show women performing many different roles and not only are they technically brilliant but watching them I was particularly touched by the individuality of the subjects and the realisation that each portrait captures and encapsulates a never to be repeated moment in time: that is the genius of photography.

I would like to hand on this page to others visiting the exhibition who will have very different impressions and interests.