Jane Bown Portraits at Northumbria Uni

She’s been photographing since 1949: interviewed by Nicholas Glass for Channel 4 in 2009: “it’s photojournalism for another age, raised to an art“. Her top tips:

1. Use window light, what she calls “nice light”.

2. Make sure you can see your subject’s eyes.

3. That’s all, really.

Click through to see a gallery of her work from 1940 to the present day on the Guardian website.

“The exhibition and book will confirm Jane Bown’s reputation as one Britain’s most significant photojournalists and a portraitist with few peers.”

See Jane Bown’s 100 Portraits Exhibition at Northumbria University’s Art Gallery – it’s on now until 19th February. The Art Gallery is building number 6. on this map on the corner of St Mary’s Place and Sandford Rd. Nearest Metro station is Haymarket, lots of buses stop nearby and there’s a small pay & display car park on the corner there. If you’re on foot, head for the Civic Centre building, the one with the seahorses on the roof, it’s unmistakeable.

Here’s Eammon McCabe’s video How To Take a Jane Bown Portrait. “She didn’t look like a threat.” Telling.

Germaine Greer writing on Bown in September 2007: “she has no truck with the generation of glamour images, and hence her portraits seem truer than those of other photographers.”

Jane being interviewed by Louise Adamson for Woman’s Hour in 2006

The Book, containing 50 pictures never seen before, normal price £30, is currently available from the Guardian at £20.

The book was (briefly) available to review at my Open Studio event in December. There’ll be a permanent copy here shortly.

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