Barry Woods at retouching desk

item details

NameBarry Woods at retouching desk

ProductionSteve Rumsey; photographer; 1953; Wellington

Classificationportraits, black-and-white prints, gelatin silver prints, black-and-white photographs, works of art

Materialsphotographic gelatin, silver, photographic paper

Materials Summaryblack and white photograph, gelatin silver print

Techniquesblack-and-white photography

DimensionsImage: 280mm (height), 375mm (length)

Registration NumberO.027051

Credit linePurchased 1998

Overview

This black and white photograph of photographer Barry Woods sitting at a retouching desk was taken by Steve Rumsey in Wellington in 1953. Woods is captured in a moment of thought, the retouching pencil in his left hand, glass of wine in his right, and the negative glowing in front of him. He appears to have a slightly bemused look on his face, suggesting that he is conscious of Rumsey and his camera.

A modernist photographer
Woods and Rumsey met in 1953, the year the photograph was taken. Rumsey had moved to Wellington to take a job as a wildlife photographer with the Wildlife Division of the Department of Internal Affairs. Woods worked down the corridor from Rumsey in Soil Conservation, and after the two photographers met at the Wellington Camera Club they quickly became friends and collaborators in their battle with the more conservative elements of the club. Like Rumsey, Woods was committed to a modernist photographic approach in which the nineteenth-century conventions of pictorialism were replaced with twentieth-century effects and an awareness of photography as a medium of the new social and technological age.

Both men left an impression. In June 1954 a letter to the club's magazine The Developer Enlarger complained: 'We have in the Wellington Camera Club at the moment, a group of so-called "modern" photographers. These workers rummage around in their inner thoughts for some obscure idea which may not even be clear to themselves and attempt to translate this idea into black and white photographs.' Woods, who is also the subject of Rumsey's photograph Face in space (Barry Woods), which is also in the Te Papa collection, produced equally modernist images that demonstrate his firm knowledge of and engagement with European modernist art.

Stylish surroundings
One of the notable things about Rumsey's photograph of Woods at his retouching desk is the social information transmitted by the image. Woods sits at a low-slung wooden chair which, along with the table on which the retouching desk sits, reveals the impact of European interior design in the homes of modernist artists like Woods. This photograph is an image of sophistication, from the furniture to the modern glassware that Woods uses to drink his wine.