Photos of Excited People Enjoying A Great Fun Day Out

Black & white reportage street photos of people enjoying the Pickering Truck Show 1986, Yorkshire England.

In 1986 I had just bought a house in North Yorkshire at Lastingham in the North Yorks Moors. I fell in love with North Yorkshire because it reminded me of the England of my childhood which had a slower pace than the England of today. People still seemed to get pleasures from simpler pursuits than they do today and, a day out was still a treat to be enjoyed as opposed to a pressured trip to the expensive overcrowded theme parks of today. Theses photos were taken in 1986 of a Truck Show at Pickering in North Yorkshire at its show ground,

Photographing Events

Taking photos at en event is easier than photographing in the street because you can blend in with everyone else taking photos of the event. Taking photos of strangers in the street is far more difficult because people wonder why you are taking their photo and are often offended.

The skill of reportage and street photography is to either blend somehow,  or to take the photos with such confidence that the people being photographed think you have a good reason to do so. I tend to prefer not to hide what I am doing and a smile usually puts people at their ease. Tony Ray Jones was a great reportage photographer and I am a great fan and love the way he captured the English at play so well. 

Nostalgia

Maybe I am looking back at the past through rose tinted glasses at a world that possibly didn’t exist, but my photos suggest it probably did. To most people the past was usually a better, simpler, safer place and in some ways my photos depict a world that confirms this.

The idea of turning up to field with hundreds of other people to look at some very well turned out trucks, that the previous day could have been seen driving about on the road, seems a bit ludicrous now, but we did and we enjoyed these shows. Cheap ice creams and hot dogs were consumed with relish and the inexpensive simple fun fair rides were a treat. These shows were above all an affordable day out and everyone seemed to enjoyed the simple pleasures.

Black & White Photography

At the time I took these photos I was undertaking large format colour photography commissions for big ad agencies and publishers and I worked mostly with a 10×8 Sinar view camera. The work was precise and high pressured with no room for errors because too much was at stake for both clients campaigns and my reputation.

At weekends I usually drove from London to my house in Lastingham and  photographed of a part of England I had fallen in love with and still live in today. Mostly I took 35mm black and white  photos probably because small format offered the complete opposite of rigours of large format studio photography. 

Kodak Tri-X

Recording North Yorkshire was a pleasure and much of the enjoyment lay in capturing it on Kodak Tri-X, a film I still love. Tri-X has the ability to hold deep black shadows with detail and this is the way I like my black & white photography. When I look at black & white photos I don’t miss the colour like some people do because to me the emotional response I get to the monotone images is so great. Black & white photography is like poetry to me and colour photography is like prose.

For me this is reflected in these photos form 1986 and they have a narrative that would have been different and less direct if I had taken them in colour. I hope you agree and enjoy this sample of photos from the series to see more Truck Show photos click below.