A few days in one of the country’s prettiest seaside towns, lovely weather, and a real find in The Profile Gallery. It’s in one of the jewel streets, just behind the station. As well as the commercial, saleable work on their website, they have a portrait studio, do coffee and cake, and have a rather magnificent gallery space for showing documentary work.
Go there, without hesitation, and go now.
They’re showing work by Robin Gale, photographs made in the late 60s and 1970s in and around Teesside. “No-one knew the South Bank like Alice” is only one of a series chosen and lovingly printed by Bob and Becky, who run the place. The photographs are extraordinary.
People who’ve seen them have recognised friends and family, and have very many stories to tell behind these magnificent pictures. Bob and Becky Mitchell also have their own story, how they began, this project taking up all their waking hours, bringing up a young family while setting up darkrooms, the studio, the galleries.
Robin Gale’s photographs, in a series up to the late 90s, are available to buy in the gallery as a self published book: Songscapes. It includes the Ironopolis songs of Graeme Miles, many written in the early 1950s. The book contains 68 photographs, 57 songs with their scores and is of a print resolution and quality difficult to get today. It’s a mere £25. Buy one.
Saltburn also has a new artists’ gallery and workshops down on the Marske Road. You’ll probably pass it if you go in to the town by car. The current exhibition in the gallery there is by the Mitchells and features ‘just…FOLK’ portraits of the singers and songwriters who live and work on this beautiful and eccentric coast. They’ve an open evening there on 10th September with a talk by Becky about her work and professional practice. They’re serving wine and cheese. Go along, meet her. Their Profile Gallery is the most interesting development in NE photography since Amber. We need one of these in every town.
If it’s a post-photography lunch or dinner you’re after, go to Virgo in Dundas Street. There are some very sound black and white photographs on the walls of people at York Races by Carol Cooke (no website) although they’re remarkably cheap so there may not be any left by the time you all get there. Have the fish cakes, or the pasta, or just the coffee. Virgo has equal best coffee with the outdoor cafe at the bottom of the cliff, (turn right just over the beck) which also sells the best ice cream cones. It’s good coffee.
These sandy 35mms are the continuation of a series of northern beach photos – I’ll be going back on Friday to do some golden hour MF or possibly even some 5×4 in these last days of summer, if I can get the film carriers loaded.
Almost forgot. On the walls in the sales/cafe half of the Profile Gallery is some work by Graham Lowe: three really superb little lith prints of Huntcliff and the pier. He has a gallery at Castleton, on the moors between Whitby and Guisborough, another one to visit. Graham has clearly spent many, many hours in the darkroom, and it shows. Lovely work.
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9 Comments
Although in general I have no regrets about moving south, I do miss the coast. Even in Whitley Bay, the sea was a huge presence – putting out the milkbottles on a winter’s night you could hear it roaring away. The coast I have easy access to is so much more restrained.
The Marlborough Downs and Salisbury Plain are no substitute for Northumberland or the N York moors either, although they are growing on me after 20 years…
Was on the N York Moors/Cleveland Way today. Magnificent 10-mile views, and the light was lovely. All the heather is out, and the purple and greens are so vibrant you can almost hear them. Shorn sheep wandering nonchalantly across the road. A bonny day.
But yes, the coast. Every day I am here I love it more.
Thanks so much for posting this. Makes me want to go ‘home’: I grew up in Saltburn. In those days we called it Saltburn by the Sea. And when I was born it was in the North Riding of Yorkshire!
best wishes
GE
So it was! :)
Going there tomorrow for more photos and a visit to the Gallery on Marske Rd, plus a peek at how The ArtBank is progressing. Will let you know, of course.
I enjoyed this exhibition and the coffee! However the town is still called Saltburn-by-the-sea, it’s never been “on-sea” and it will always be in North Yorkshire no matter how many times the area is managed by different borough councils Gary.
You’re right I missed out the hyphens. But isn’t “North Yorkshire” another of those new-fangled names…? :)
The ‘North Riding’ is still how I think of it. North Yorkshire is just a vague generic name adopted by the council c.1974 . Why throw away a thousand years of history for that I wonder?
Yes Ian, anything south of the river Tees is the North Riding of Yorkshire. It is interesting to see that our council – Redcar & Council write their address as North Yorkshire. It’s all very confusing changing from Teesside to Cleveland now North Yorkshire or even Tees Valley. However one thing is clear, it’s Saltburn-by-the-sea. Perhaps the title of this page might be put right please?
Michelle, what a very odd thing to do! I’ve been visiting Saltburn for decades: no idea why or how I made this strange mistake. My elderly mother who’s being going a lot longer than I have said “of course it’s Saltburn-by-the-sea!”
With hyphens? I’m assuming yes?
Thank you SO much!
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[...] will be hosting a talk about her work by Becky Mitchell, and there’s still time to see the Robin Gale photographs at the Profile Gallery. Go, before he gets really famous and his book becomes a premium priced coffee table collectible. [...]
[...] at a guess, but the owner’s label has long since disappeared. It was exposed a second time at Saltburn on Sea this summer. Here’s the whole lot, with just the boring ones or duplicates (yes!) removed. [...]