Putting island life in focus (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

The photographer who has explored Bradford's Caribbean links

8:44am Tuesday 21st September 2010 in Behind the News By Emma Clayton

A smartly-dressed family strikes a formal pose as the camera flashes.

The father, in suit and trilby, holds his young son, sporting a bow tie, on his knee. His daughter peeks out from a pretty straw hat while his wife, in a tweed two-piece, nervously clutches her handbag.

The photograph was taken in the 1960s, when the family had settled in Bradford from the Caribbean.

It’s a typical pose from the former Belle Vue Studios in Manningham which, in the 1950s and 1960s, was well used by Bradford’s migrant communities.

“The studio was initially Victorian and survived after others had closed,” said Bradford photographer Tim Smith. “The owner, Tony Walker, maintained that old-fashioned formal style and gave a friendly welcome to people who’d moved here from around the world, at a time when migrant communities weren’t always welcomed.

“He established a good reputation with them, taking the kind of pictures they liked to send home showing they’d ‘arrived’ in more ways than one.”

A selection of photographs from the Belle Vue Studios are included in Island To Island, Tim’s exhibition exploring the relationship between Britain and the Caribbean islands of Dominica and Barbados.

Running during Black History Month in October, it features Tim’s photographs of Bradford’s Dominican community alongside ones he took in Dominica and Barbados during a visit to his childhood home there earlier this year.

Tim’s father worked for the Overseas Development Administration headquarters in Barbados and, aged six, Tim lived there for three years. “I remember arriving and seeing wonderful colours and the sun shining brightly, it was all so vibrant,” he says. “Caribbean people who came here often say their first impressions were that it was dark, with blackened mill buildings. Someone told me they thought the sun was smaller over here.”

Tim’s exhibition includes photographs taken by his father, Derek Smith, providing a rare glimpse of life in the Caribbean in the 1950s and 1960s.

“Dad wasn’t a professional photographer, but he captured images of everyday life,” says Tim. “His pictures were taken on colour slides. I remember the whirring of the projector as he showed them to my sister and I.”

Having interviewed people who settled in Britain, Tim includes their stories of migration and return, and explores the identity setting each island apart from its neighbours.

“There are significant Caribbean communities in many parts of Britain – people from different islands settled in different places. Roughly two-thirds of Bradford’s Caribbean community originate from Dominica, with smaller numbers from Barbados, Jamaica and a scattering of other islands,” says Tim. “In Britain, we have things in common with other European countries, but we’re different because we’re an island with an island outlook. I wanted to bring across the idea that like Britain, each Caribbean island has its own history and culture.”

Tim’s photographs of Dominica and Barbados reveal traces of the islands’ colonial past. In one picture, a little girl skips past a red postbox, in another a priest awaits the arrival of guests at the Catholic cathedral in Dominica’s capital town, Roseau.

Children race around the playground of a school called St Luke’s, and crowds gather at a sweet stall in Pointe Michel. “Dominica is very French in many ways, with a strong Catholic influence. Its carnivals have their roots in Catholicism,” says Tim. “Barbados is more ‘little England’.”

Both islands rely heavily on tourism for income. There’s a striking image of a cruise liner towering above the shacks of a Dominican harbour front.

“Dominica is a rocky volcanic island rising from the sea, whereas Barbados is flat, with its rainforest cleared to make sugar plantations, and has those sandy beaches. It attracts many tourists, to the detriment of its character. There are fast food outlets everywhere.”

In one photograph, a woman sits on her doorstep, shelling almonds. Tim happened to be walking past her in a Dominican village, Wesley, and when he started taking her photograph, it turned out many of her family live in Bradford.

“Another time, I went to a church and got talking to someone who used to live in Manningham and West Bowling,” he says. “I went out there with a plan and some phone numbers, but when you’re in the Caribbean you have to go with the flow. Some of the best pictures happened almost by accident.”

The Barbados images include women shopping in downtown Bridgetown, walking past Woolworths; Barbadian Brownies wearing similar uniforms to those British Brownies used to wear, and a classic car rally passing a monument in Holetown marking the spot where British sailors first stepped ashore in 1627.

Photographs of Bradford’s Caribbean community include a domino match at the Manningham-based Dominica Association, a man peeling sweet potatoes at a mobile food shop travelling through the city, and dancers at the Bradford South Carnival. Some of the spectacular costumes worn in the Caribbean street-style carnival, designed by Judy Peltier of X-Plosion Cultural Arts, are on display.

There are similar costumes in Tim’s images of Roseau Carnival, unfolding on a video screen.

“I’m keen to explore the carnivals in Bradford and other areas of the North,” says Tim.

* Island to Island runs at Bradford Industrial Museum until October 31.