Western Daily Press (Saturday)
West photographer’s legacy in the frame
ONE of the region’s earliest photographers, who was capturing scenes and portraits through brass-bound lenses and recording them on glass plates set inside wood and leather boxes, is to be celebrated at an exhibition 170 years after he first set up a tripod.
Somerset’s James Date took up an interest in photography in the 1850s when techniques for recording images were in their infancy.
He not only took photographs of the port of Watchet where he lived, but of the surrounding towns and villages, and he made a living by taking people’s portraits.
“His studio would have been a complex affair,” says Nick Cotton, of Watchet’s Lynda Cotton Gallery where the exhibition is being staged over the next two weeks.
“And his portraits of local people would have been something of a novelty as a ‘likeness’, prior to photography would have required a visit to a portrait painter, the cost of which was beyond the reach of most people.
“These little portraits were often enclosed in a splendid leather folded case and of course much treasured. As he became more successful, he also produced albums of photographs which were sold at numerous outlets.
In 1867, he printed The Handbook of Watchet and Neighbourhood which could be purchased for eight old pence. For the more discerning, the Best Edition at 2 shillings and 8 pence. He also produced and sold stereoscopic pictures which amazed anyone upon first seeing examples of these remarkable 3-D images.”
Mr Cotton added: “James was keen to include local people in his more complex and carefully considered compositions, requiring them to keep very still for some considerable time due to the length of exposure time required to avoid blurred images.
“He was a local celebrity and there would have been great excitement when it came to taking a photograph. He would direct people about, issuing and shouting various orders and demanding people kept perfectly still before returning to his camera.
“It must have been pure theatre as he performed what many may have considered a form of alchemy. His equipment was bulky and he would have required an assistant to help him if any distance needed to be covered, not just with the loading of his pony and trap but setting up the camera for each individual shot.
“This may well have taken half an hour or longer to complete as the plate had to be developed in his portable darkroom. A far cry from the instant image of today!”
James Date had a flair for composition.
“Having studied his work over a good many years – and carefully considering how he ‘made’ his images – a number of interesting factors arise,” says Mr Cotton.
“Firstly, and perhaps the most interesting aspect, is how often he included either friends or perhaps members of his family in many of his compositions as they occur regularly, carefully posed to either add interest or for instance in his geological beach photographs, for scale. It can certainly be argued that he had the eye of an artist and, before each photograph was taken, he carefully considered the positioning of figures and, for want of a better word, his ‘props’ such as a farm implement or in one case a corn stook.
“As he was developing and refining his skills, he set about recording the many changes and new developments in his environment. He was there to record just about every innovation in his hometown – the building of the wharf for the Mineral Railway and the construction of the East Quay, the arrival of Brunel’s railway from the mainline at Taunton (and ultimately to Minehead), and even the mill chimney when it first appeared to dominate our skyline for over a century.
“He recorded the tall ships in the harbour and various views of the town when many of the buildings were still thatched and the first street gas-lighting. These events are well-recorded in written texts but what Date brings are faces to the words and incidental details that, however good the storyteller might be, cannot be conveyed as expressively as in a photographic image.”
James Date died in 1895 aged 89 having lived through most of the Victorian period, “quite possibly unaware of his legacy”, according to Mr Cotton.
Now his important contribution is being recognised at the exhibition at the Lynda Cotton Gallery in Watchet every day until October 30 from 10.30am until 4.30pm.