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Paul Thorpe's Oldham, 1974-1988 Cafe Royal Books' Theatre of the Everyday

Paul Thorpe's Oldham, 1974-1988

Cafe Royal Books' Theatre of the Everyday

by Martin Devenney, Contributor
first published: October, 2024

approximate reading time: minutes

‘It hardly matters what activities are photographed, as long as photographs get taken and are cherished’. (Susan Sontag)

Paul Thorpe’s book on Oldham 1974-1988 is 36 pages of photographs but only 9 of them have people in them. The other photographs are of streets and buildings, of cars and tower blocks, of new builds, and old ruins, of workers and shoppers, of backyards and balloon salesmen, but that is what history is to most of us and if we don’t keep taking photographs of these things, they will be lost.   

Outsideleft writers Duncan Jones and Alan Rider have just reviewed 2 of the three new books by Publishers Café Royal (which include ‘Backstage 1977-2000’ by David Corio and ‘North Birmingham’ by Richard Christensen) as a review of the third book ‘Oldham 1974-1988’ I thought I might write a little more about the history of documentary and street photography and place the mission of Café Royal books in some wider context.

In her book ‘On Photography’, American cultural historian and writer Susan Sontag suggests ‘It hardly matters what activities are photographed, as long as photographs get taken and are cherished’ and documentary photography such as this should be cherished. 

I have always been interested in photography as a way to document the history, culture and theatre of the everyday. We all know about kings and wars and politics, but the history of 'ordinary' people is far more fascinating because it is us. I am the custodian of our large box of family snapshots from Victorian great grandparents standing for a dower family portrait to family Christmases and holidays throughout the 20th century. Each picture examined closely reminds us of the fashion, styles, haircuts, interior/exterior architecture, and design of the era and each is an evocative window to the past. American cultural historian Susan Sontag says that photographs, even if they are documentary pictures we did not take, or do not know the subjects, we can make up and imagine our own stories and personal interpretations.

In his book ‘Camera Lucida’, French cultural philosopher Roland Barthes writes of two parts to a photograph, Studium is the shared cultural interpretation of an image, the factor that most of us will understand.  The Punctum is  a specific detail in a photograph that we are drawn to as an individual that ‘pierces’ or ‘pricks’ a particular viewer. For example we might all recognise the language of the photograph by Paul Thorpe above of a group of people  waiting to watch a carnival pass by in Oldham (Studium), but my eye was drawn to the bored face of the young person behind the guy with the flat cap because it sparked a memory of being dragged along to events that I had little interest in when I was a teenager (Punctum).  

Street photography has existed since the first photographs by Daguerre and Niepce in the early 19th century but due to long exposure times it was difficult to capture people going about their everyday lives. In today's age of the smart phone everybody is a photographer, so it has lost some of its romance but I’m not knocking it. I was/am a very lazy photographer and was happy when photography gradually became easier and more accessible. I didn’t have to spend days in a dark room and get one or two good photos from three or four rolls of Ilford black and white film. The problem with smartphone photos is that most of them are not exhibited to anyone but social media friends and family.    

Café Royal Books, are publishers of the documentary and street photograph genre. They are an independent family run publishers staffed by Craig Atkinson, Joanne, Oscar and Hugo. They are based in Southport, in the northwest of England and they describe their ethos as championing ‘…work that doesn’t have a platform, remains overlooked or is underrepresented…free from decoration, and over-design. While each title stands on its own, collectively, they form an important archive, offering insight into a specific genre of photography, spanning decades of British and Irish history’.

The books follow a rich tradition of British and American documentary photography and one of my favourite examples of this is The Bolton Worktown project for the Mass Observation movement in 1937 by photographer, designer and poet Humphrey Spender. One part of the project  followed workers from a Bolton mill on a much-needed day out in Blackpool to see the Illuminations (below).

Bolton Museum

One of the problems I continually wrestle with is asking permission from all the subjects before you take the photograph. If you ask first then the moment is lost and if people are aware there is a camera nearby, many people strike a pose (even if this is unconsciously). Barthes said, ‘Once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of 'posing', I instantaneously make another body for myself, I transform myself in advance into an image’. 

‘To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it…’. - Susan Sontag

The photographs I took below are of my mother-in-law Mary cooking and deep in thought and her brother Tom sleeping at the table after his midday meal. These photographs were taken without their knowledge, but I think the moments are worthy of being recorded. Sontag says ‘To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it…’. 
Triptych

It is also very important for photographs of this genre not to be exploitative, (unlike say an infamous Channel Five documentary about poverty) but to embrace and celebrate everyday life and everyday history. Sometimes there can be a fine line between these two things. If this style of photography interests you, make sure you visit the wonderful Bolton Worktown project and here are some other documentary photographers to check out. Jamal Shabazz, Vivian Mayer, William Klein, Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Richard Billigham, and Martin Parr. 

Café Royal are an important archive and Paul Thorpe’s book on Oldham 1974-1988 is a worthy addition to this set of images.   

Martin Devenney
Contributor

Martin Devenney is a Photographer, an artist and a lecturer in Design and Cultural History.


about Martin Devenney »»

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