Article

Members Platform: Richard Callendar
Members Space, Street Level Facility

We are delighted to have work by SLP member Richard Callender on display in our members project space ‘Cornelius Barnett - Trombones’.

Richard has said of the work:

“Big Neilly, my late father in law, Glasgow born, heating engineer to trade, passed away October 1991, aged 62. I knew from family recollections he had, in his 20's, been a keen self taught photographer - developing, enlarging, printing in a makeshift darkroom in the bathroom of the family home.

 I became curious if there might be negatives of Neilly's I could work on.  A careworn Kodak sheet film box finally came my way in early 2018. I discovered some medium format  negatives, mostly 6x6, a handful of 6x9's, loose and individually cut, somewhat wanting - scratched, stained, faded. Many were family or friends, portraits and groups, but also other subjects, albeit fewer in number; night scenes, the city in transformation, abstracts, workmates and workplaces, street art and, yes, trombones.

 Many questions - who, where, when, why - have answers, but not all, so we are still left, no bad thing, to wonder.”

 He gave a fascinating talk on Saturday 9th February detailing the process behind reprinting this work.