Peter Mitchell

blockend · Sep 1, 2019

Film photographer of lost places and ephemera. British colourist.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-48937831
https://strangelyfamiliar.co.uk/gallery/iv-viking-space-mission/

NJH · Sep 1, 2019

Thanks for posting, love seeing this sort of stuff.

pentaxuser · Sep 1, 2019

Thanks for the links, blockend. Great stuff there. Within my living memory as i was in my 20s but it now looks like another world . Seeing what i think is the ghost train picture, wasn't there a BBC 4 documentary about him fairly recently?

pentaxuser

CMoore · Sep 1, 2019

Yes, i really dig these types of photos.
Pictures from our "recent" pat.

blockend · Sep 2, 2019

pentaxuser said:
Seeing what i think is the ghost train picture, wasn't there a BBC 4 documentary about him fairly recently?

pentaxuser

I'm not aware of a documentary, and it isn't listed on his web page. Peter Mitchell gets a mention at 8:30 in this interview between Martin Parr and Jem Southam, two more "early" colourists.:

Mitchell describes himself as a "hermit" and works somewhat outside the British art photography scene. I suspect there are a number of such people ploughing their own furrow out of the spotlight of photographic fashions.

jvo · Sep 2, 2019

blockend said:
I'.... I suspect there are a number of such people ploughing their own furrow out of the spotlight of photographic fashions.

i suspect there are many that fit that category, some more worthy of attention than others

pentaxuser · Sep 2, 2019

blockend, on checking with another forum of which I am a member, Peter Mitchell was on a TV programme called Britain in Focus, BBC4. His section was the Fairground Photographer.

It was good on his photography and also good on a human interest level. Unlikely perhaps to be any longer available on BBC iPlayer but if it ever is repeated keep an eye open for it. BBC 4 are so strapped for cash that repeats are the order of the day.

pentaxuser

jtk · Sep 3, 2019

Note his logic and decision (perhaps permanent) in favor of digital.

pentaxuser · Sep 3, 2019

jtk said:
Note his logic and decision (perhaps permanent) in favor of digital.

Yes amongst other reasons the RA4 paper no longer delivers what he needs but by my inference the former RA4 paper did?. Pity the interviewer didn't pursue this further

pentaxuser

jtk · Sep 3, 2019

pentaxuser said:
Yes amongst other reasons the RA4 paper no longer delivers what he needs but by my inference the former RA4 paper did?. Pity the interviewer didn't pursue this further

pentaxuser

OK...but perhaps a more direct interpretation is that he's found that optical paper can't rival inkjet saturation/detail.

pentaxuser · Sep 3, 2019

jtk said:
OK...but perhaps a more direct interpretation is that he's found that optical paper can't rival inkjet saturation/detail.

Maybe but as it wasn't pursued we'll never know enough to draw any conclusions. A pity

pentaxuser

jtk · Sep 3, 2019

pentaxuser said:
Maybe but as it wasn't pursued we'll never know enough to draw any conclusions. A pity

pentaxuser

Perhaps...but what I see online suggests that his work, although beautiful, may never have been technically particularly rigorous compared to what he might have received from a good professional lab. His digital re-start has undoubtedly been a learning experience for him.

All that aside I love his work.

Peter Mitchell

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