For an interesting Interview with Derek Bishton on Ten 8 magazine, Handsworth Self Portrait and the work he did with Brian Homer and John Reardon and others in the 70s and 80s click here

We”ll be back in Handsworth on June 5th at the Library to run a session with Kieran Connell from Birmingham University – see http://inbirmingham.wordpress.com/

Hope to see some old and new faces there – here’s the flyer:

Its 30 years since Derek, John and I were planning Handsworth Self Portrait so when Kieran Connell came to see me this week about his micro-history of Handsworth it set the memory going.

He brought a copy of David Attie’s book Russian Self-Portraits with him and we talked about the influence that had had on us. Derek and I reckon we only saw one image from that set – probably in an early issue of Camerawork. So I set to on the web to see if I could find copies of Attie’s book. I also fished out my old Cameraworks but I am missing the crucial copy so back on the net I found a copy of issue 10 Portraits which may be the one. The upshot is that I have three copies of RSP coming – one for each of the three HSP organisers plus the Camerawork.

Talking to Derek later he reminded me that Irving Penn was another influence so I set off again and mistakenly went for his Dahomey images when the real influence was Worlds in a Small Room. He went round the world on assignment for Vogue armed with a tent and a backdrop. His striking images have a lovely flat light which we thought we could use effectively. I find his project somewhat disturbing – a little too reminiscent of the anthropological images from earlier photographers with an apparent distance between the photographer and his subjects.

I ended up buying a copy of Worlds in a Small Room from an internet bookseller in Bridport and its was only when we called me to offer me a good deal that I realised that he was John Taylor who was one of the founders of Ten 8 and who was around working in Stourbridge when we did HSP.

The book I have bought from him is his personal copy so might conceivably be the actual book we saw when we were planning the shoots. Small world indeed.

Brian Homer