An Evening with Dennis Morris

http://www.dennismorris.com/

Expectations?

Not sure really.  The flyer that had been handed out was fairly basic.

Come & meet the International

photographer famous for his images of

Bob Marley

The Sex Pistols

Marianne Faithful

Oasis and many more

Wednesday 13th October

At least I had heard of the people that would be in the images - more than that I had listened to some of the music that they had made at the time.  That ages me.

So I turned up to see an exhibition of photographs only to be taken on a journey through time with Dennis Morris.  Not an exhibition then, but a talk that detailed the how and why he had become involved with photography and a potted history of the journey that that had taken him on illustrated with photographs taken at the time.

Throughout the evening Dennis talked in a gentle and entertaining manner, his passion for photography and music shining throughout.

Dennis, mid interview.

We went to see a photographer - the talk / exhibition was more than this it was about the person - his background, growing up, personal influences - part of Black History Month

Dennis displayed a love of reportage. Before this event I had associated this with photojournalism, news reporting, candid images (often from overseas wars) that capture a moment or an event.  So how does this fit with Bob Marley? 

http://www.reportage.org/  describes reportage as the neglected art of storytelling in pictures.  This makes more sense and the evening starts to fall into place.  The images that Dennis displayed do tell a candid story of time and place.  More than just the image of an individual, while listening to the tale these people become more real, memories of the time start to sneak in.

The iconic image from the evening.  Bob Marley in an image that features on record sleeves, news articles at the time and continues to be seen when he is talked about.

For me, though this was one of my favourite images of the evening,  illustrating a relaxed time before everything took off.

This image is from the Bob Marley, a rebel life exhibition.  Not shown on the evening, but one that illustrates the share joy of the time, relaxed, full of life, Bob Marley the person, not the legend.

In an age of digital where you can take 100's of images at little/no cost it's important to remember the that these were taken on cameras that were fully manual, when you could not be sure what you had captured until the image appeared through the chemicals.  When asked about kit ,Dennis gave a strong response that it was mainly about being able to see the image, anticipation developed through an understanding of the subject and some luck in being there.