Riverside School, Thamesmead, England. Portrait #1 1977
This photograph was taken during a cover lesson. A cover lesson is where a teacher is asked to look after a class when another teacher is ill or away from duties. If you are lucky there would be work available for them during this period. More often than not you would arrive at the class unprepared, without any teaching materials. The expectation was that you kept some sort of order for an hour or so. I found that I could keep their interest by taking their picture!
Comments and faves
Nikita Petrov, Lynn (Gracie's mom), Whipper_snapper, Fabricator of Useless Articles, and 33 other people added this photo to their favorites.
Lynn (Gracie's mom) (55 months ago | reply)
I love this photo. Very nicely done.
Mak'm & Mrs (55 months ago | reply)
Thank you. This photograph has a special place in my heart, it was the first shot where I started to believe I could make interesting images. The young lady was in control! It's hard to believe that there was a classroom full of kids just behind the camera.
nothinginteresting [deleted] (50 months ago | reply)
Very self-possessed young woman.
r3tr0fr34k (49 months ago | reply)
This set is fantastic! I can't imagine anyone being able to do this today without sending out consent forms to parents and getting the Head's permission, not to mention the murmurings it would cause amongst other staff. In fact these days it tends to be the students who take the photo's on their camera phones and then upload the pictures to their Bebo/MySpace/Facebook account. And then staff have to be careful with their own Facebook accounts, as well as trying not to get their own photo taken by students who then upload it and make comments, oh, it's can be a minefield!
I think that's what makes collections like this more interesting. Everything is filmed/photographed these days because it's so cheap and easy, whereas you've taken photo's of not-very-often-recorded-at-the-time-everyday- life-as-it-happened.
What camera did you use at the time? I'm going to guess at a Pentax of some kind (due to you using a Pentax digital today)?
Mak'm & Mrs (49 months ago | reply)
Thank you I am glad you like the photographs. You seem to have experience of school life and understand the frustrations and red tape that has grown to restrict everything that we do.
Mind you it is interesting to note that all the photographs at Riverside School were taken with the Head's permission (I didn't just pick up the camera and start taking pictures) and I made sure that everyone involved - teachers, dinner ladies and parents knew what was going on. This just seemed a natural and sensible thing to do. It was only when I took my first photographs (at Sheppey School) when I simply started taking pictures without permission, although I did make sure that I showed everyone my pictures when they were developed. Unfortunately I only have a handful of images from that period and only one is probably worth showing.
I have never thought about face book, my space etc. If they had been around I do not know what I would have done.
My first camera was a Chinon 35mm with a 50mm 1.4 lens, I then bought an Olympus (the next one up from an Olympus trip) and then on to medium format with a Mamiya C220. I think that these were the cameras used between 1976-1978. When I left teaching, I graduated to Pentax, this was a form of inverted snobbery as I knew that all the professional photographers used Nikon, Canon and Leica! But I loved my Pentax MX cameras and I have stuck with Pentax ever since and the K20D is an absolutely beautiful camera. I also recently bought a second hand Bronica GS1 which is a 6x7 format. I always wanted to shoot 6x7 but I could not afford it back then!
r3tr0fr34k (49 months ago | reply)
I work in a school, but thankfully don't teach!
My second SLR was a Chinon, which died quickly and was then replaced be an ME Super. I still use it sometimes but I'm afraid I made the leap to Canon (first a film SLR then digital). At the time Pentax had little to offer me compared with Canon. The newer digital Pentax SLR's are a worthy rival to Canon & Nikon though. You do tend to find that people who've used a manual Pentax as one of their first cameras will stick with the brand, and quite right too! I've got an adapter to use my old Pentak K lenses with my Canon though.
Always fancied a nice medium format camera myself, not sure I'll ever own one though. The closest I've come is a Halina A1.
bobby stokes (49 months ago | reply)
My SLR is ten years old now, a Centon, which I believe is a Pentax knock off!
You've really wrung some glorious work out of your gear.... these are portraits in the best sense, I think.
Mak'm & Mrs (49 months ago | reply)
Thanks for your comments. I have only just had time to reply as I have just finished an exhibition of the photograps in this set. It was shown in the school which later replaced Riverside School and many of the children in the photographs came along with their own children. I am just so pleased to have taken the pictures when I did and I hope that there are many others who are doing the same.
theunderstudy (48 months ago | reply)
Thankfully I don't teach, but work in a school, and am responsible for the photographs taken therein. And as has already been mentioned it would be impossible to achieve this level of candidness, sadly. It's all gone wrong in a way that pictures like yours, which are so unique, will be impossible to reproduce. A pity, because I know just how excited and wonderous your images now are to the people you photographed all those years ago.
Mak'm & Mrs (48 months ago | reply)
Sounds like an interesting job. I suspect that you are right about not being able to take the same sort of shots these days but there is a part of me which wants to believe that someone could do the same, just needs a bit of belief and a willingness to trust each other.
Ian-S (36 months ago | reply)
A wonderful set of pictures, which I would never have found had it not been for the flickr blog feature. I've faved this to make it easy to find your pictures again. They are so full of humanity.
A really smart tv documentary producer would arrange a repeat of that exhibition at the former school, and film the visitors discussing the pictures and the memories they provoke.
nicolette wells (36 months ago | reply)
this could be my older sister - my teenage memories of her are exactly like this - great image
Emmanuel Smague (36 months ago | reply)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Schools of the World, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
cathie joy young (36 months ago | reply)
I went to school in Oxford when I was a child. We moved to the States after that. These pictures bring back so many memories of that era for me. Absolutely brilliant. Strikes me right at the heart. Thank you.
Jersey City Project (36 months ago | reply)
great portrait
GoodKarmaHippieMagic (36 months ago | reply)
very much Lady Di.
:-)
Mak'm & Mrs (36 months ago | reply)
The thing that I really like about this picture is the way that the young girl took control of the situation, she did not mind that all her class mates were laughing behind the camera :)
Vicky Lamburn (28 months ago | reply)
I'm sure there are a world of superlatives I could pile on to your photos, but these really strike at the heart of just something -- and that's so powerful...
Mak'm & Mrs (28 months ago | reply)
Thanks very much for your comments, it is very moving for me to realise that something which I did without too much thought is affecting people after all this time.
India and Chantel (26 months ago | reply)
This Is My Auntie =]
Mak'm & Mrs (26 months ago | reply)
What is her name? After all this time I cannot remember.
India and Chantel (26 months ago | reply)
Her Name Was Nicola Killman, But Her Name Is Now Nicola Wigmore
Mak'm & Mrs (26 months ago | reply)
Thanks very much for letting me know who the young lady was and who she has become.
baby_diona (17 months ago | reply)
My mum!!!!! :D
Mak'm & Mrs (17 months ago | reply)
I hope your Mum is doing well.