John Bulmer

I stumbled across this photographer in my travels through Retronaut, one of my favourite websites twentieth century images.

John Bulmer documented some of the most atmospheric images of Northern England taken in the last century. Having discovered his talent while a student at Cambridge, Bulmers passion got him thrown out of the university as he was found attempting to document a fellow student jump an 8ft gap between two buildings. A pioneer of colour photography, Bulmer worked for the Sunday times magazine during the sixties.

Bulmer worked on many groundbreaking stories including The North, The Black Country as well as many around the world, visiting almost 100 different countries.

Yet my favourite of his images remain those taken in Northern England in the sixties. Here is a small sellection of his images I particularly like.

Cuba, 1965

Ethiopia, 1960s

France

Haile Selassie

Miles Davis

Thelonius Monk

Eve Arnold

With the new year brought the passing of a much accredited, magnificent photographer, Eve Arnold.  The Philadelphia born photographer, widely recognised for her intimate photographs of Marylin Monroe, would have been 100 years of age in April. With her Naturalist style of Portature, Arnold caputed such photos as the 'Bar girl in a brothel in the red light district, Havanna, 1954' - inset. in 1951 she became the first female photographer to join the Magnum photographic agency.

Although widely famed for her shots of famous stars of the Twentith Century, Arnold didn't forget her past, documenting the lives of the poor in Cuba, Russia and China, to name a few.  

"I have been poor and I wanted to document poverty; I had lost a child and I was obsessed with birth; I was interested in politics and I wanted to know how it affected our lives; I am a woman and I wanted to know about women." - Arnold

I've only just started to search out photographers and their work, however Eve Arnold is certainly a great inspiration and one of my favorites, already. 

Bar girl in brothel, Cuba, 1954.

 Charlotte Stribling