Research point Worktown

Explore the website Humphrey Spender’s Worktown. Briefly reflect in your learning log on Humphrey Spender’s documentary style and the themes of Worktown, with particular emphasis on the ethics and purpose of the project. (Open College of the Arts, 2014:42).

Spender was the main photographer for the Mass observation project. This was begun by Tom Harrison, anthropologist and Humphrey Jennings, surrealist painter and Charles Madge, poet, in Bolton in 1937. It aimed to record the lifestyles of ordinary people and was dubbed “Anthropology at home”; He took approximately 850 images in Bolton and Blackpool between 1937 and 1938, its scale was unique.

Spender was keen that people shouldn’t be influenced by the presence of the camera as they might react artificially and also intended to avoid preconceived theories; so they shot in concealed ways which led to them being called “spies, pryers, mass-eavesdroppers, nosey-parkers, peeping toms, lopers, snoopers, envelope-steamers, keyhole artists, sex-maniacs, sissies, society playboys.” (Spender quoted on Bolton Worktown). He used a rangefinder camera with 35mm film which was unusual then as most were using large format cameras.

Library reading room, April 1937. Photograph: Humphrey Spender/Bolton Council, from the Collection of Bolton Library and Museum Services

Crowds on Blackpool beach, 1937-38, photographed by Humphrey Spender. Photograph: Humphrey Spender/© Bolton Council, from the Collection of Bolton Library and Museum Services

The Mass Observation (MO) was influenced by various elements. Harrison believed in close observation and lived in the slums of Bolton with others who made daily observation. Whilst Spender had a strong social conscience and was concerned about social injustice (Bolton Worktown, 2020); he knew that his photographs could draw attention to inequalities in society. His photographs and did draw attention and he was recruited by the Daily Mirror as a travelling photographer. It has been said that their work laid the foundations for the welfare state (Jackson, 2015).

This style of candid photography is still popular today, however you could take it further and claim that the MO was a forerunner of today’s surveillance culture. I think that it is it’s firstly intention that ameliorates this; Harrison and Spender aimed to use the project to expose and educate the rest of the country and society to the realities of life in some places/sectors. I also think that the way Spender has recorded the issues that concerned him, with objectivity and integrity also ratifies his images and his contribution to the project.

It is probable that had they been overt in their methods of collecting and recording everyday life the results would not have been so honest.

My Learning:

The intention, ethics and methods of photographing affect the validity and reception to a project.

References:

Bolton Worktown – Photography and archives from Mass-Observation (2020) At: https://boltonworktown.co.uk/ (Accessed 29/06/2020).

Jackson, K. (2015) ‘Worktown: The Astonishing Story of the Project that Launched Mass Observation, by David Hall – review’ In: The Guardian 16/12/2015 At: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/16/worktown-astonishing-story-mass-observation-david-hall-review (Accessed 29/06/2020).

90 and counting (2000) In: British Journal of Photography pp.12–13. 19.04.00 At: https://www.oca-student.com/sites/default/files/oca-content/key-resources/res-files/bjp_spender.pdf (Accessed 29.6.20).

Open College of the Arts (2014) Photography 2: Documentary-Fact and Fiction (Course Manual). Barnsley: Open College of the Arts.

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