Only The Sunny Hours
Contemporary Photography with a Brownie 127

Curated by Cally Trench

Judy Goldhill

Only The Sunny Hours


Brownie 127 photography by Judy Goldhill

Judy Goldhill, The Glyndebourne Series (2015)
Black and white 127 film

Brownie 127 photography by Judy Goldhill
Brownie 127 photography by Judy Goldhill
Brownie 127 photography by Judy Goldhill
Brownie 127 photography by Judy Goldhill
Brownie 127 photography by Judy Goldhill

Judy Goldhill writes: This project provoked thoughts about my life-long involvement with photography, and the photographs and photographers that first inspired me. The English photographer Tony Ray-Jones was entranced by capturing the English at play, who he forensically studied in black and white photographs. My prized possession is his publication, A Day Off, a well-thumbed volume. I used a visit to Glyndebourne to re-imagine Tony Ray-Jones's celebrated photograph of picknicking opera-goers through the lens of the Brownie 127.

The Brownie 127 camera has such strange, soft focus and distortion, which perhaps recreates that rarified atmosphere. The paraphernalia of picnicking in the genteel English country house gardens has stayed much the same, but the iPhone, selfies, and social posing have changed the atmosphere of this extraordinary event. The couple in the Tony Ray-Jones photograph were unaware of the photographer's presence; he was invisible, as I was with my old-fashioned plastic Brownie, but for different reasons. My opera lovers were absorbed in themselves and their own digital images.

Judy Goldhill used 127 black and white film, standard processing, and hand printed her photographs.

Judy Goldhill has been involved in photography from a young age, owning a Box Brownie when she was ten to photographic publishing (Picture Editor of the BJP and Co-Editor of Creative Camera, 1978-80), and since 1980 a freelance portrait photographer. She has recently undertaken three artist residencies with American observatories and is currently artist-in-residence at UCL.

Goldhill's artist's books are held in library collections both in the UK and internationally.

Breathe, her current exhibition is currently on show at The Freud Museum, London, where through photographs, film and an artist's book she examines early parental loss.

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