Peter Cherry, in the 1980’s holding binoculars experimentally coupled to a small 110 camera.
Peter Cherry - Background
I was born in the English seaside town of Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1959, so you could say that ‘the coast’ was always in my blood. We lived there until I was three years old, but I was Christened in Heysham, where my grandparents lived. My primary school life was spent mainly in Woodstock near Oxford when at the age of nine I started to use my father’s Olympus Pen half-frame camera, always loaded with colour slide film. Sometimes the 72 exposures on one roll of film would take a full year to complete, so getting the slides back from the processor was quite an event, as was father’s subsequent evening slide show in our darkened lounge. The whole of my secondary school days were spent in Colchester, Essex. While at the Philip Morant School there, I invented and made a device for coupling a camera to any pair of binoculars, in order to take low cost telephoto photographs. This won me a national engineering award for ‘Young Engineers’ in 1977 and an appearance on the BBC’s Pebble Mill lunchtime programme.
While in my early teens, I started a photographic project which was only completed in my university years. This was to photograph the nesting of blue tits or great tits in a dark enclosure which resembled a natural hole in a tree, and was not normally visible to anyone. This project was inspired when I bought a book produced by the ‘Oxford Scientific Films’ founders entitled ‘Window into a Nest’. I had seen the same people give a lecture in Woodstock a few years earlier, and from then on I wanted to emulate them. In 1978 a pair of great tits nested and I photographed them with my Olympus OM1 and OM2 cameras from a hide which I built from wood and roofing felt. Electronic flash lighting was used, which did not appear to worry the birds at all. In 1980 another pair of great tits nested and this time I took 3D photographs with two Olympus OM1 cameras mounted base to base on a home-made bracket and fired simultaneously with a twin cable release. The film used was the now extinct Kodachrome 25 (slide film) which was extremely sharp and virtually grain free. The 3D results obtained by means of two cheap Agfa viewers glued together were astonishing and one felt one was looking at the actual scene, frozen in time. I went on to have a extensive article published by Animals Magazine ( an RSPCA publication ) entitled ‘The Secret Life of the Great Tit’ including a cover picture. It was thrilling to see the cover displayed in places like London’s Liverpool Street Station, so that the public could see a scene which was once so private to me.
My grandparents owned 'Cherry's Dry Cleaners' in Penny Street, Lancaster up until the early 1960's - the business was founded by the Cherry family in Victorian times - and they lived in Heysham, then Arnside. I went to Lancaster University to read Engineering in 1977 and while there started to take photographs around Morecambe Bay, which was only a short bus journey away. These trips also included the taking of 3D photographs by means of two Olympus 35RC compact cameras mounted on a steel bar and fired simultaneously using a twin cable release. The results when viewed using a pair of Agfa viewers were truly amazing. I am thinking of transferring these photographs, and the great tit series mentioned above, onto a 3D Blu-Ray Disc one day for viewing on any current 3D television. The cover picture for my new book ‘Cherry’s Morecambe Bay’ was actually printed from one slide of a 3D (stereo) pair. After I gained a degree in Mechanical Engineering at Lancaster University, I took a one year masters degree in Engineering Design at Loughborough University.
After leaving Loughborough University with a Master of Technology degree I was very lucky to get my first job at ILFORD Photo in Mobberley, Cheshire in August 1983, shortly after they had moved all their operations up to Mobberley from Essex. I started as a Design & Development Engineer and invented and designed a novel machine for processing photographic papers ( with chemicals ) in particular the Cibachrome colour print material. While testing my processor, I spent a great many happy hours in the ILFORD Photo darkrooms, using some of my colour slides as test photos.
It was while working at ILFORD Photo that I put together my first book - entirely in my own time, not in any way connected with the company - which I published myself in July 1986. I wrote about 9,000 words to accompany my photographs, but it was essentially a ‘Photo Book’ which I titled ‘On Morecambe Bay’. BBC’s North West Tonight people bought a copy of my book and invited me to appear on their show and so we filmed on the bay with Cedric Robinson in October 1986. In the year after publication, 1987, a submission of 24 cropped transparencies from ‘On Morecambe Bay’ gained me Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.
The majority of my photographs depicting the fishing activities of Cedric Robinson and 'Tant' Wilson were taken in 1982 and 1983, and appear in both of my books, but Cedric has changed remarkably little in appearance since then, as can be seen in my six video clips, filmed between 2008 and 2010, on my www.MorecambeBay.com website - simply click on the top right button, above, to go to that website.
In 1990 I left ILFORD Photo and joined BOOTS The Chemists, at their Head Office in Nottingham as a Senior Technologist responsible for the product development of BOOTS brand cameras and film. This was a better paid job, but I did miss the ‘steeped in photography’ environment of ILFORD Photo and sometimes wished I had never left. Even though the BOOTS Brand Cameras I developed were a huge success, I resigned in 1995 to become self employed, which I am to this day, and have not regretted it. Ironically my old department ‘Customer Equipment’ at ILFORD Photo was wound-up in the same year, due to restructuring. I now earn part of my living as a professional photographer.
Why did I publish my first book - and now my second book - myself? This was because photograph based books are not the same as novels. They rely crucially on photograph selection, cropping layout and design which, in the world of publishers, are almost always carried out by people other than the photographer - unless that photographer is extremely famous. I was thus able to have the luxury of total creative control over my books, and free to choose exceptionally good printers - who can make or break a photograph based book. I would, in addition, make significantly more money if the book was a success, than if I used a publisher. On the down side, one has to sell quite a few hundred books before the printing costs are recouped, and do the distribution oneself, which can involve very many of hours of legwork.
My new, second, book entitled ‘ Cherry’s Morecambe Bay’ currently in the bookshops was published in June 2011 and has 110 of my photographs whereas my first book had 78. This was done by using only picture captions in my second book, which is essentially an exhibition of photographs containing virtually all of the best pictures I have ever taken, due to Morecambe Bay being my most inspiring subject. Only 38% of the photographs in my new book first appeared in my first book, so it is well worth buying, even if you have my first book. My new book currently sells in bookshops in the Morecambe Bay area, in particular the Waterstones bookshops in Lancaster and Kendal at £15.99.
My life and photographic career has therefore been interlinked with Morecambe Bay and the life of Cedric Robinson and his family, who I now count as close friends. I am single and now live on the Lancashire coast.
I would like to end with a personal message to all of my former friends, with whom I have lost touch. I would be delighted to hear from the following people: simply email me at: peter@petercherry.com
In ‘no particular order’:
Any teacher I have ever known, Donald, Karen Hosier, David Drewett, Simon Milner, Tim Hundy, Ian Filby, Carey Gray, Wendy Ellis, Christopher Eves, Andrew Courtier, David Hosford, Charlie Richardson, Clive Schofield, Peter Yeats, Tim Kessler, Eric Davis, John Appleton, Steve Reeve, Bob Jeffery, Ken Smith, Martin Hammond, Chris Wadsworth, John Bach, Andrew Brown, Dave Ward, Alan Ledbetter, Michael Davis-Bater, Michael Wilson, Richard from Loughborough Uni.