5 hours ago
15
This was taken 50 years ago by my 20-year-old self. I was away from Baltimore for the first time, where I had been at art school while still living at home. My tutor at Maryland Institute College of Art, and his friend, a tutor at Nottingham Trent University, had decided to set up an exchange programme. So I spent one spring semester in Nottingham with no classes to attend: it was strictly photography and strictly on my own, which was kind of new.
I stayed with a young family – I lived on the third floor in their Victorian house. They had a baby boy who turned one when I was there. I have pictures of the birthday. I was really embedded, as they’d say today, with this family. We had dinner together. I remember we made marmalade, using the pips to get the pectin.
I’d go out every day, either to the Arboretum [Nottingham’s oldest public park] or just to walk around town or look at all the demolition that was happening. It was a time of change and Victorian buildings were being torn down to make way for newer council housing. It wasn’t that different from Baltimore. Both are working-class towns. Baltimore had the steel industry, Nottingham had bicycles and lace and other factories.
But the industries that had made these cities were waning. It hadn’t really hit us too hard yet in Baltimore – Bethlehem Steel closed years later – but there was a downturn. What struck me about Nottingham was all the razing of the buildings. Local kids made these demolition sites their playgrounds. There was no supervision: they were climbing through windows and going into the empty buildings and exploring. They were lucky not to have fallen through a broken window or something.
I would regularly see Joe, the man in this picture, walking in the Arboretum. That park was a magical spot for me. The day I took this photo may have been the first time I met him. I have other shots of him that are not as captivating, because the dog really makes this picture. The dog’s name was Becky and the little girl was his granddaughter. I never learned her name as she wasn’t with him all the time, but Joe and Becky were regulars. He became a guy to talk to; we liked to talk about music.
I was lucky to be basically a tourist: you look at everything through eyes that make it seem new and fresh. To me, this picture now seems very English. I really had no idea what England was going to be like before I arrived, when I was basing my knowledge on things like the Roger Miller song England Swings: “England swings like a pendulum do / Bobbies on bicycles, two by two / Westminster Abbey, the Tower, and Big Ben / The rosy red cheeks of the little children.”
The fact that in Nottingham I was able to approach people and chat them up, if you will, and have something in common, and then ask them to pose for a picture, that was a skill I developed that stood me well. When you’re alone in a place, you’re a magnet for strangers to come up and talk to you, and vice versa. In Istanbul, I got up in the minaret at the Blue Mosque because I spent a little time with a rug dealer whose cousin was the imam there. “Oh, I can get you up, no problem,” he said. Serendipity has played a huge role in my career.
John Dean’s CV
Born: New York City, 1955
High point: My first assignment for the Walters Art Museum in the 1980s, travelling to Istanbul to photograph the Hagia Sophia.
Top tip: Don’t take your “vision” for granted. There is something unique in your point of view. Work on what satisfies your creativity, and share it.
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