Our Patch JUNE 2016
Our Patch JUNE 2016
STATE
OF THE
ARTS
NOONIE MINOGUE
THE INSIDE SCOOP
ON ARTISTS AT HOME
F
for 40 years photographer
John Garrett stuck faithfully
to spooling film through his
trusty 35mm camera as he
bestrode the globe – often
accompanying journalist John
Pilger on assignments to war-torn areas.
But John (pictured above), who
lives in Hammersmith’s Brackenbury
Village, finally embraced the digital age,
realising the extraordinary potential of
tweaking pixels.
The switch has liberated a lensman
who arrived in London from Melbourne
in the Swinging Sixties, captured iconic
images of Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton
– not to mention the world’s favourite
portrait of a laughing John Betjeman,
and who has inspired generations of
snappers via a bookshelf of cool, calm,
user-friendly ‘how to’ guides.
John, 75, is staging his latest
exhibition on the walls of a flat off
Hammersmith Grove; a dramatic,
unsettling yet supremely sympathetic
series of images of Mexico.
For a man who made his name in
black and white photography, the inyour-face, punk colours he presents in
his latest works are genuinely shocking.
“My mates were amazed,” he said as
he leafed through a box of the A2-size
prints; many of them brightly tinted
images of Mexican cemetery and grave
art. “After years of black and white, I
really went into colour. Really!”
His outlook on life has mellowed.
Once obsessed