A collection of covers from my collection of Edwin Smith and Olive Cook books, in no particular order. It needs re-doing as some are only thumbnail size. Also, a few more have been added since this page was created.
Robert Elwall 1953-2012
posted 10th Jan 2013
I learned this week that nearly a year ago Robert Elwall, the photographic historian and photographs curator at the Royal Institute of British Architects, had died.
Me & Edwin Smith at Arbor Low
I’ve written an article on my ‘Real Photographs’ site about a discovery made whilst reviewing my collection of photographs made at the prehistoric henge site of Arbor Low in Derbyshire (featured on this site here). Continue reading “Me & Edwin Smith at Arbor Low”
On photographing cathedrals and parish churches
In 1990, Olive Cook gave me a signed and dedicated copy of ‘English Cathedrals‘, which had just been published. In the Foreword she says that the book was needed because relatively few of Edwin’s photographs of cathedrals had ever been published, yet it was a subject to which he was considerably drawn.
Continue reading “On photographing cathedrals and parish churches”
Book Review: Evocations of Place
In 1940 the Focal Press published Edwin Smith’s ‘All the Photo Tricks‘; this is doubly curious. It is rather at odds with Smith’s photographic mantra of ‘cooperating with the inevitable’ and a somewhat tricky undertaking when the evidence suggests that, as a conscientious objector, he spent much of the War years playing hide and seek with the authorities. This is just one of the curiosities of Smith’s life.
Matrix – The Saturday Book
This article, by Robert Elwall, appeared in Matrix 27 in 2007. It discusses Edwin Smith and Olive Cook’s involvement with The Saturday Book, which he called ‘A Cabinet of Curiosities’ .
Bomarzo and the Sacro Bosco
In the days when I was printing Edwin Smith’s negatives for Olive Cook, his widow, she would sometimes give me copies of his original prints as gifts. This was always a great honour, as she was extremely protective of the work he left behind, particularly any prints he had made himself.
This is one example, which I received sometime in the early 1990’s. Although given to me framed, I never hung it as the makeshift mount was one made for a landscape print and this was portrait format, so it didn’t look right at all. The frame was also old and battered, so recently I took it apart to cut a new mount and re-frame.
Daily Telegraph: Edwin Smith’s England
Christopher Howse celebrates the nostalgic photographs of Edwin Smith and the glorious, changing landscape that inspired him 50 years ago.
An article in the Daily Telegraph, 2007, by Christopher Howse
“A photographer who conveys the apparent timelessness of England’s landscape, and its vulnerability, is Edwin Smith”.
Edwin Smith Recollections
These recollections, by people who knew Edwin Smith, where published to accompany the exhibition of his work held at The Minories Gallery, Colchester, in 1974.
Edwin Smith – The Last Exposures
These photographs were on the roll of film that still lay, undeveloped, in Edwin’s Ensign Autorange camera when Olive let me have it in 1993. It had been in the camera since 1971 when Edwin died, unbeknownst to Olive.
I processed the 22 year-old roll with great care and was astonished to find it contained usable images. Continue reading “Edwin Smith – The Last Exposures”
