It has been written in these columns before that there are many different types of art, literature, food, and photography. All can be used in many different contexts and purposes, and all can shape our lives in one form or another. Camera Club or Photographic Society photography is a niche, albeit a worldwide niche in a worldwide structure of national and international governing bodies some of which have been around since the early days of the medium in the mid 19th century. They provide clubs like ourselves with a balance between offering learning opportunities for our own club members, and the International Salon and Exhibition paths where members can excel.
At Falkirk C.C., we have always been proud of our club colleagues who have learned, participated and excelled in these forums. The fact that our club’s 6 most successful photographers ever in the 134 year history of our group, on the International Salon and Exhibition circuit, are current F.C.C. members and freely passing on their knowledge and experience to others is quite an achievement on their part ! However, our club also has a long history of encompassing the wider, and more serious, fields of photography. We have welcomed lecturers from the Services, the Police and Forensic institutions and from colleges and universities. Indeed we have had, and have, club members who use photography in a professional sense in the most traumatic situations. In that context, and not without risk to themselves, their work seeks out the causes of harm. Ultimately, it helps to keep the rest of us safe.
This brings us to Chris Leslie, who visited our club on Thursday night. Having qualified in Social Sciences at university, he set out to help. To help somewhere. It was the mid to late 1990’s and a war had ravaged a section of eastern Europe, so that is where Chis went. He found himself in post-conflict Yugoslavia, now 6 nations where war and horror had reduced the towns and cities to rubble and taken an indescribable toll on the people. Chris went as a volunteer. He physically helped people old and young to rebuild their homes and their lives, to try to move forward. He took photographs, and he taught other people to take photographs. Photographs full of the reality of their plight in those shattered towns and cities with homes reduced to rubble.
Roger Fenton was the first person to photograph a battlefield, in the Crimea, during the 1850’s. Robert Capa photographed death in the Spanish Civil War during the 1930’s and was on the beaches of Normandy on D Day. Sir Don McCullen has photographed war in multiple locations during the latter quarter of the 20th century. In a post conflict environment Chris Leslie’s photographs leave the viewer in no doubt about the depth of destruction yet, they sometimes hint at hope and the determination of a civilian population to rebuild their lives in seemingly impossible circumstances.
Today, there is evidence of that hope being made real. Through email, and online platforms not widely available when these photographs were taken, Chris now knows what happened to some of the people he met. One young person, now adult, is a teacher. Another is a Professor of Mathematics. A young person to whom Chris taught photography now has a successful video production company.
Chris is one of the photographers who feature in the Making Space | Photographs of Architecture exhibition now on at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. The exhibition examines the effects of architecture on peoples lives and Chris’s contributions are often poignant, getting under the skin of how bricks & mortar influence, or reflect, our lives.
This is photography with a meaning, and a purpose and it was a privilege to welcome Chris to our club. Visit the exhibition.
Take care.