Our Patch JUNE 2016
STATE OF THE ARTS
Ffor 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 with the sharpness of pictures, he now loves the way colours bleed together into fuzzier, more abstract effects.
Reportage has taken him all round the world – to Bangladesh, India, Russia, Gaza, Belfast during The Troubles – but he has never been happy being pigeonholed as one type of photographer or another.
“ I’ ve never been comfortable being described as a reportage photographer; I’ m just a photographer,” said the bearded Bohemian.
Among his 13 books is the definitive 35mm Photographer’ s Handbook,
Talking heads: a reportage shot of a barber shop; the purity of a black and white image of boxer Johnny Nelson from John ' s journalism days; and the shocking colour of a Mexican cemetery
MEXICAN RAVE
From the land of mojitos and maracas, local photographer John Garrett has created an eye-catching show, writes Tim Harrison
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