Born in London, and surrounded by books during his working life in the capital, for a while he worked with the well-known publishers Thames & Hudson. He came to Cornwall six years ago to join the staff of Tate Publications in St Ives. For the past five years he has lived in Newlyn with his wife, Sophie, and their children, Oliver and Jake, and it was while walking the children around Newlyn that, as he says, "more and more unique aspects of the place revealed themselves to me", and the seeds for his collection of photographs were sown.

Essentially a self-taught photographer, although he is quick to acknowledge the help and encouragement he has received from Nik Strangelove, the other influence upon him has been that of the great French photographer Eugene Atget, who died in 1927 and is acclaimed for his photographic documentation of Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The title of Barry Sinton's book, Disregarded Territories, comes, in fact, from Gerry Badger's book on the life and times of Atget.

This is a collection of images of Newlyn which is decidedly different, as the painter Jeremy Le Grice - whose studio is in Newlyn and who is renowned both for his own work and as a champion and trustee of Newlyn Art Gallery - points out in his perceptive introduction.

He says: "The eye (Barry Sinton's) behind the lens is not focusing on ordinary seaside views. It is rather the implied nature of individual lives that created the man-made terrain within the village that dictates the opening of the shutter. Closely linked with those buildings and associated objects are the private byways and narrow alleys that lead deep into the most obscure and often secret aspects of the place. All these things themselves create the real and remarkable atmosphere of the village, so the already known views do not need to be repeated by this photographer. He is something of a visual archaeologist who draws together the hidden signs of characteristic activities. They emerge as personal signatures, made manifest by things."

There are 47 such black and white "personal signatures" altogether. Shots of "things as they are", that, rather like those of Atget, are low-lit and devoid of people - two factors that suggest they were probably taken in the early morning, before the village was fully awake. From studies of Adit Lane to Foundry Lane, High Mountains to Keel Alley, Chywoone Hill to Old Paul Hill, the Fradgan to the Fishmarket, and St Peter's Hill to the South Pier, they add up, to quote yet again from Jeremy Le Grice's introduction, to being "a straightforward celebration of the fact that the inner core of Newlyn has survived against the odds, and how loveable, magically precious and precarious this is."

An all-Cornwall production number, published by iao books in Newlyn, and printed by Headland Printers in Penzance, and a must for all natural born Buccas, indeed, for all who love Newlyn in particular and Cornwall in general, Barry Sinton's Disregarded Territories is available from local bookshops, price £9.95. Further information can also be found at www.newlyn.info

article copyright THE CORNISHMAN 

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