Great review and so good to see more of Depardon's images of Glasgow. When he took these photos he'd just returned from a war in Africa. He spoke very little English and was helped a lot by children who showed him around. The guy with the eye patch was unhappy being photographed and thumped him! The use of colour is stunning. His b/w work of rural France is also very good. I've seen interviews with him and he's a very nice man with a big heart.
He captured really good life in 80s Glasgow. I don't know How Glasgow looks like nowadays but in Glasgow in 80s looks so Depressed, Dark, Poor, always Cloudy days...
Great insight, thanks. I've had this book for a couple of years and went to see a big Depardon exhibition in Nice last summer because of it. Great photographer, and thanks for all the books you're showing us.
I visited today a Depardon's exhibiton in Milan Italy and his Glasgow photographs were really impressive because of the use of light and colours. Of course all other photos were very good and interesting too, specially the rural France. For sure a great photographer.
I’m here due to Douglas Stuart’s book - Shuggie Bain.. highly recommend.. and this pictures absolutely depict atmosphere of this bleak and incredible story .. breathtaking...
@@Camerasnaps Oh I definitely will, thank you very much. I love that cover. That shot of boy gazing at something in the far distance is exquisite! Excellent work, makes the book even better. I’ve been fascinated from the first moment I saw it.. so touching..
Thanks for showing us this book. This is another I added to my wishlist (it's a massive list) after seeing some of his work in the book 'Strànge and Familiar', which accompanied the exhibition at the Barbican, London. The picture of the couple standing next to the Roller was used as the cover image for that book, which is also excellent. As you point out, it's a lesson in seeing how to find a linking theme that ties work together. Small splashes of colour contrasting with a subdued environment. Brilliant. Something for us all to be inspired by.
Thanks for review interesting critique of the photo's. However as someone else points out the concept that Glasgow had no middle class in 1980 is quite absurd. A 10 minute taxi ride for Raymond would have taken him to Glasgow's West End and the University of Glasgow area or he could have gone to the suburbs like Bearsden. Perhaps he could have spent a day at Glasgow School of Art with some fellow artists. He may have photographed the middle class in attendance at a Scottish Ballet performance or a fur coated lady shopping in the department store splendour of Frasers? He perhaps found the working class a more interesting photo subject which is fair enough and the they are fantastic photo's of one side of Glasgow that I am familiar with and remember well from my childhood. However it is but one side of Glasgow even then and to pretend otherwise is a bit silly.
@Dorian Phoenix - middle classes, i.e. not lower classes , existed in Glasgow for ever. One suspects that the horrors of working class dereliction form a sort of confirmation bias for the photographer, and chattering classes. It is all surface - Glasgow has a working class with a rich culture - not confirming necessarily to the bleakness desired by the Marxists. After all, at the time of the Union of the crowns and later, Glasgow was a strong orange city , that is, having a profound faith in Protestant Reformation values.
My understanding is that the photographer had a local guide who took him to a golf club and to some other venues to try and get photos of the life of the middle class , but those photos just didn't seem to work, so maybe not so much a claim that Glasgow had no middle class, the problem was that trying to depict it in a photograph was proving difficult for the photographer, the working class and poverty is much easier, it is there on the street and right in your face, you don't have to look too hard. Depardon didn't say there was no middle class, he said they were very discreet and so he couldn't quite penetrate into it and depict it in a meaningful way, so in some ways he failed to fulfil the brief for the Sunday Times, the story was not published and he sat on the photos for nearly 40 years before re examining them. Sometimes it just turns out that way, you go to photograph something in a certain way or with an idea in mind, but the environment presents something else to you and so your brief shifts toward something else.
The amount of griefs you'd get to photograph kids in the UK is ridiculous, 10 years ago, me as an architectural assistant was asked to photograph a completed building project for record, I took some shoots with kids playing in the foreground, thought that would make the building looked more lively, the next day police was in the office questioning me and my boss, asking why were we taking photos of those kids playing! WTF?!
Thanks for going through the book. Interesting you focused, nay obsessed!, so much on "colour". Perhaps that was Gerard's priority, I don't know. But composition seemed more important to me.
Exquisite photos and thank you very much for going through the book, since i grew up in Glasgow in the 80s i for one appreciate it but arent you going a bit overboard with some of your descriptions?
they are brilliant photographs I will say that, very accomplished, and they are very bleak, I was brought up in Scotland in the 1970s and I wouldn't want to go back to that era, I do not feel a warm nostalgia for that time, so these photographs are brutally honest for me, the photographer truly caught the moment, and I feel depressed looking at them!! they are great images of course, and they have moved me at least, maybe not in a particularly positive way but I think that is okay, in that respect the photographs are successful, I look at them and think....jeez, that is grim, but it is how it was, the camera does not lie.
Govan is pronounced Guv-van. There's not much in Scotland that's pronounced as it looks! There are shots from all over the city. It's not just the Govan area. Govan was a ship building area so most of the shots with cranes will be around there. However I recognise photos from The Briggate, city centre (Bothwell Street), The Gorbals, and the East End around the Bellgrove area. I was 10 years old in 1980 and from a poor area so this was very much 'my Glasgow' but while these are amazing photos I do think they are leaning towards a stereotypical view of Glasgow as grim deprived hellhole. Even in the 1970s and 80s when extreme poverty was widespread that wasn't a truly representative view of the city. In fact Glasgow always had one of the largest and most genteel middle classes in the entire United Kingdom. It's funny though as a working class kid brought up in a world that essentially doesn't exist any more how you feel a nostalgia for a time and place that was so much tougher, and indeed brutal, than today.
I know (most) of the placenames of the photographs. (I even recognise some faces)... (I own this book b.t.w). I visited Govan... recently (Before the pandemic) and the area has improved a lot since these photos were taken. I grew up there and even I got lost in some areas that should've been very familiar. Not ALL the photographs are in Govan, b.t.w. Great review though.
The little boy at 7m25 seconds was my friend from Southcroft st in govan,his name was Scott Duncan who sadly drowned when he was about 9/11 years old,I lived ther from 1980-1987 very tough times the first shop on the right was called manza,s ❤️
Great book. Depardon has always been one of my favour Magnum photographers. I have edited a video slide-show with pictures from this book and music by the Scottish folk band King Creosote. It's here if anyone wants to take a look vimeo.com/160108419 Surprisingly the video has so far 36.5K views after it was shared in a Glaswegians' facebook page.
Terrific collection but don't get hung up on the 1980 shoot. If I took you to 75% of the locations tomorrow, you would more or less have the same settings. Govan especially has changed very little. Glasgow is a beautiful city of contrasts, people and places. The city has tried for decades to play down her gritty under belly, this may be reason for the book burial. As for middle classes, the city today and back then, has an abundance of well to do people.
I bought this book when it came out and at the time many people saw it as very poorly printed and a travesty compared with the same pictures on exhibition.Do you agree?
![เปิดคำทำนาย นอสตราดามุส - บาบา วานก้า ปี 2025 คนทั่วโลกต้องเจออะไรบ้าง? | แฉ 11 ธ.ค. 67 [2/3] |GMM25](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xmTIKWJUMPM/mqdefault.jpg)
Fantastic.Brought back so many memories.👍
fantastic and than you for letting me know
Great review and so good to see more of Depardon's images of Glasgow. When he took these photos he'd just returned from a war in Africa. He spoke very little English and was helped a lot by children who showed him around. The guy with the eye patch was unhappy being photographed and thumped him! The use of colour is stunning. His b/w work of rural France is also very good. I've seen interviews with him and he's a very nice man with a big heart.
Thank you Paul for your insight. much appreciated. best wishes
Great great review. It really made me want to buy the books. And just did. Thanks again!
My pleasure Charles and thank you for your kind words. enjoy the book
He captured really good life in 80s Glasgow. I don't know How Glasgow looks like nowadays but in Glasgow in 80s looks so Depressed, Dark, Poor, always Cloudy days...
Thanks for bringing this work and this fantastic work to me. Keep doing what your doing. Your commentary really makes me think more
Very kind words and thank you David. I will keep trying. This is a lovely body of work and I am pleased I have shared it with you.
Great insight, thanks. I've had this book for a couple of years and went to see a big Depardon exhibition in Nice last summer because of it. Great photographer, and thanks for all the books you're showing us.
With pleasure and thank you for your kind words
I enjoyed your insight and keen observations and opinion and comments about Depardon's work in this book.
Thank you. It is great work
so much to take in - what a body of work!
I visited today a Depardon's exhibiton in Milan Italy and his Glasgow photographs were really impressive because of the use of light and colours.
Of course all other photos were very good and interesting too, specially the rural France. For sure a great photographer.
Wonderful series of work.
It is
GREAT REVIEW! I WAS ON THE FENCE PRIOR...BUT BOUGHT AFTER I PAUSED THIS VIDEO AND THEN RETURNED TO FINISH YOUR VIDEO!!! SUBBED!🤘🏾🤘🏾
thank you. I really appreciate your comments. Its a great book. Lots more to come in 2024. Best wishes
I’m here due to Douglas Stuart’s book - Shuggie Bain.. highly recommend.. and this pictures absolutely depict atmosphere of this bleak and incredible story .. breathtaking...
Not read that yet. One of my best mates shot is on the cover, Jez Coulson. you should check his work out.
@@Camerasnaps Oh I definitely will, thank you very much. I love that cover. That shot of boy gazing at something in the far distance is exquisite! Excellent work, makes the book even better. I’ve been fascinated from the first moment I saw it.. so touching..
drop Jez an email if you want to find out more about it. he is always open for a chat with people.
Thanks for showing us this book. This is another I added to my wishlist (it's a massive list) after seeing some of his work in the book 'Strànge and Familiar', which accompanied the exhibition at the Barbican, London. The picture of the couple standing next to the Roller was used as the cover image for that book, which is also excellent. As you point out, it's a lesson in seeing how to find a linking theme that ties work together. Small splashes of colour contrasting with a subdued environment. Brilliant. Something for us all to be inspired by.
Strange and familiar is a lovely insight to his composition. He is still going strong which is great to see.
Thanks for review interesting critique of the photo's. However as someone else points out the concept that Glasgow had no middle class in 1980 is quite absurd. A 10 minute taxi ride for Raymond would have taken him to Glasgow's West End and the University of Glasgow area or he could have gone to the suburbs like Bearsden. Perhaps he could have spent a day at Glasgow School of Art with some fellow artists. He may have photographed the middle class in attendance at a Scottish Ballet performance or a fur coated lady shopping in the department store splendour of Frasers? He perhaps found the working class a more interesting photo subject which is fair enough and the they are fantastic photo's of one side of Glasgow that I am familiar with and remember well from my childhood. However it is but one side of Glasgow even then and to pretend otherwise is a bit silly.
thank you for your insight Gary
@Dorian Phoenix - middle classes, i.e. not lower classes , existed in Glasgow for ever.
One suspects that the horrors of working class dereliction form a sort of confirmation bias for the photographer, and chattering classes.
It is all surface - Glasgow has a working class with a rich culture - not confirming necessarily to the bleakness desired by the Marxists.
After all, at the time of the Union of the crowns and later, Glasgow was a strong orange city , that is, having a profound faith in Protestant Reformation values.
My understanding is that the photographer had a local guide who took him to a golf club and to some other venues to try and get photos of the life of the middle class , but those photos just didn't seem to work, so maybe not so much a claim that Glasgow had no middle class, the problem was that trying to depict it in a photograph was proving difficult for the photographer, the working class and poverty is much easier, it is there on the street and right in your face, you don't have to look too hard. Depardon didn't say there was no middle class, he said they were very discreet and so he couldn't quite penetrate into it and depict it in a meaningful way, so in some ways he failed to fulfil the brief for the Sunday Times, the story was not published and he sat on the photos for nearly 40 years before re examining them. Sometimes it just turns out that way, you go to photograph something in a certain way or with an idea in mind, but the environment presents something else to you and so your brief shifts toward something else.
@@christoph404 great insight and debate Chris. Thank you. Stay safe.
@@Camerasnaps thank you...you too!
The amount of griefs you'd get to photograph kids in the UK is ridiculous, 10 years ago, me as an architectural assistant was asked to photograph a completed building project for record, I took some shoots with kids playing in the foreground, thought that would make the building looked more lively, the next day police was in the office questioning me and my boss, asking why were we taking photos of those kids playing! WTF?!
I am with you. I often listen to other photographers worrying about the same thing.
Thanks for going through the book. Interesting you focused, nay obsessed!, so much on "colour". Perhaps that was Gerard's priority, I don't know. But composition seemed more important to me.
Thanks Howard. He is a great composer of images. for me that goes without saying sometimes. We are both right.
Exquisite photos and thank you very much for going through the book, since i grew up in Glasgow in the 80s i for one appreciate it but arent you going a bit overboard with some of your descriptions?
My pleasure Ryan. Sorry if you feel that I am going overboard it is just my way.
they are brilliant photographs I will say that, very accomplished, and they are very bleak, I was brought up in Scotland in the 1970s and I wouldn't want to go back to that era, I do not feel a warm nostalgia for that time, so these photographs are brutally honest for me, the photographer truly caught the moment, and I feel depressed looking at them!! they are great images of course, and they have moved me at least, maybe not in a particularly positive way but I think that is okay, in that respect the photographs are successful, I look at them and think....jeez, that is grim, but it is how it was, the camera does not lie.
Here is another perspective Chris I will be looking at this in time www.caferoyalbooks.com/scotland/douglas-corrance-glasgow-1970s1980s
@@Camerasnaps ah yes they look great, bit more uplifting!! look forward to your critique on that one.
"there wasn't really a middle class to shoot". That is simply not true. There were (and still are) Glasgow middle classes.
haha yes but they have no culture or soul :)
Govan is pronounced Guv-van. There's not much in Scotland that's pronounced as it looks! There are shots from all over the city. It's not just the Govan area. Govan was a ship building area so most of the shots with cranes will be around there. However I recognise photos from The Briggate, city centre (Bothwell Street), The Gorbals, and the East End around the Bellgrove area. I was 10 years old in 1980 and from a poor area so this was very much 'my Glasgow' but while these are amazing photos I do think they are leaning towards a stereotypical view of Glasgow as grim deprived hellhole. Even in the 1970s and 80s when extreme poverty was widespread that wasn't a truly representative view of the city. In fact Glasgow always had one of the largest and most genteel middle classes in the entire United Kingdom. It's funny though as a working class kid brought up in a world that essentially doesn't exist any more how you feel a nostalgia for a time and place that was so much tougher, and indeed brutal, than today.
Thank you for the insight. I am a northerner but my Glaswegian is not great. Best wishes
I know (most) of the placenames of the photographs. (I even recognise some faces)... (I own this book b.t.w).
I visited Govan... recently (Before the pandemic) and the area has improved a lot since these photos were taken. I grew up there and even I got lost in some areas that should've been very familiar.
Not ALL the photographs are in Govan, b.t.w.
Great review though.
Thanks for the insight
The little boy at 7m25 seconds was my friend from Southcroft st in govan,his name was Scott Duncan who sadly drowned when he was about 9/11 years old,I lived ther from 1980-1987 very tough times the first shop on the right was called manza,s ❤️
thank you for the insight James. That is very sad news about Scott. RIP Scott
@@Camerasnaps no worries,it brought back alot of good memories,so thanks for this ❤️
Me when I discuss photos: it got this color here, OMG also in this corner!!
And people be like "boy this guy is crazy"
People think I am crazy too, I am with you. Have a wonderful and crazy 2022.
Anyone know The story of the three drunks sitting at the fire it's A great picture
Good video, Thanks. I like your comments.
Thank you. Please share the video if you can.
What kind of film is used?
Pretty safe guess is a Leica with a 28mm lens and Kodachrome 64
Camera Thank you very much.
He is seeing the art 🖼 colour here, colour there ............its a hole different ballgame if you lived the art...............🤔
We all live the art somehow.
Great book. Depardon has always been one of my favour Magnum photographers. I have edited a video slide-show with pictures from this book and music by the Scottish folk band King Creosote. It's here if anyone wants to take a look vimeo.com/160108419 Surprisingly the video has so far 36.5K views after it was shared in a Glaswegians' facebook page.
Terrific collection but don't get hung up on the 1980 shoot.
If I took you to 75% of the locations tomorrow, you would more or less have the same settings. Govan especially has changed very little. Glasgow is a beautiful city of contrasts, people and places. The city has tried for decades to play down her gritty under belly, this may be reason for the book burial. As for middle classes, the city today and back then, has an abundance of well to do people.
Thank you for the insight
I bought this book when it came out and at the time many people saw it as very poorly printed and a travesty compared with the same pictures on exhibition.Do you agree?
I never got the chance to see the exhibition Bob. Sorry for the late reply as I have only just saw the comment. Have a great 2022 Bob.
I Miss kodachrome 64.
It was beautiful.
Govan is pronounced 'guvvin'
Thanks for the heads up Alan and have a great 2022.