Roger Hicks considers…

‘Railway lines, Bristol’, 1974, by Stephen Dowle

Although this is Bristol, it could be anywhere. This is a large part of the appeal of the picture and why I chose it. So much is typical: the shabby brick, the dirty foliage, the apparently broken window, the industrial-looking background, the slightly wonky curves and indeed straights that mark it out as an old, run-down urban railway. Then again, although I say ‘it could be anywhere’, the unusual layout of the lines might give the game away to railway lovers: it was laid out in 1835 as part of a horse-drawn tramway.

Another large part of its appeal is the deceptively mundane composition. It is reminiscent of the Düsseldorf/Neue Sachlichkeit school of so-called ‘objective’ photography, without the emphasis on extreme technical quality. In fact, it’s pretty much a snapshot, but although the hazy background and rather old-fashioned colour reinforce this impression, they are also a part of its everydayness. It looks like something any of us could see and snap.

Which we could, if we were lucky. The bushes bracketing the picture; the chimneys, left and right; the background haze; yes, it’s what you’ll get if you stand in the right place. You could hardly compose it otherwise. Except, of course, that you could. A little closer or a little further away; a different focal length; suddenly, you’ve lost it. At this point, how much is luck and how much is the photographer’s eye?

Ongoing project

In all fairness, if we look at the rest of the pictures in the book from which this photograph is taken ( Bristol, A Portrait 1970-82, Amberley Publishing), we see that Dowle’s eye is/was not infallible. Quite a lot of his photographs are distinctly ordinary, although there are several (especially in colour) that are as striking and memorable as this one.

This is, however, the third major factor in the picture’s appeal: it is part of a set. Of course, it will be of far more interest to those who know Bristol than to those who do not, but it’s also an object lesson in how the everyday slides into the past, so that the common becomes uncommon. It also shows the difference between a theme and a random collection of whatever caught the photographer’s eye.

This is why I rarely have much time for those who look at a picture like this and say, ‘Huh! I’ve got lots of better pictures than that.’ Well, they may have, although in this case I doubt it. What they don’t usually have are enough related pictures for an exhibition or (as here) a book. There’s nothing behind their ‘ better pictures’, because ‘ better’ can mean a whole lot more than just ‘superficially attractive’.