By Elin Spring
Black and white photography is celebrated for its timeless quality. It is no wonder that photographers continue to fall under the spell of its mesmerizing emotional range. As gesture and contour, texture and mood take center stage, emblems of past and present recede. Leica Gallery Boston is host to a demonstration of these expressive powers in two captivating solo shows focusing on Ireland. Jamie Johnson’s “Growing Up Traveling” chronicles children in the shunned, nomadic Irish Travellers subculture while John Day’s “The Troubles” documents scenes from the height of Irish civil conflict in 1972. Their riveting photographs suspend time and crackle with a sense of immediacy. On view through April 20th, 2024.
“Carnival” 2022 from the series Growing Up Traveling by Jamie Johnson, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
Jamie Johnson’s enchantment with children has been a driving force in her prolific career as a global documentary photographer. During a visit to an Irish countryside carnival many years ago, an elderly British woman warned her to “beware of the Irish Travellers (who staged these fairs), they’ll kidnap your children!” Alarmed but even more curious, Johnson returned, only to discover a welcoming community. Across many years and visits, Johnson forged lasting relationships that have enabled her to photograph her favorite subject and help advocate for this maligned community.
“Pony Boys” 2018, from the Growing Up Traveling series and book (Kehrer Verlag 2020) by Jamie Johnson, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
“Mary” 2023, from the series Growing Up Traveling by Jamie Johnson, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
Children hold an unabridged mirror to society. This makes Johnson’s images doubly intriguing, as they reflect not only her subjects’ momentary expressions but the daily activities that comprise Irish Travellers’ insular culture. In arresting close-up portraits and sweeping wide-angle frames, Johnson’s images offer hints at the Traveller’s zealous Catholic faith, tight familial bonds and the perplexing custom of their children to pantomime adulthood. Johnson focuses her keen, compassionate eye on these children, all the while divulging enlightening facets of the Travellers’ traditions and the daily challenges they face.
“Going to the Fair” 2018, from the Growing Up Traveling series and book (Kehrer Verlag 2020) by Jamie Johnson, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
“Protestant boys in the Shankill Road neighborhood of Belfast prepare for a bonfire as part of the July 12th celebration of the Battle of the Boyne, where Protestant King William of Orange defeated the Catholic King James II in 1690” from the 1972 series The Troubles by John Day, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
In 1972, John Day was a college student with journalistic aspirations. Little did he know that a summer spent covering the treacherous civil war in Ireland, known as “The Troubles,” would change the trajectory of his life. With press passes from school and hometown newspapers, a typewriter, a used Leica M2R and Tri-X film, he and a fellow student landed in Belfast, the capital of predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland. Endeavors like photographing “Bloody Friday,” when a fatal bomb wreaked havoc in the Oxford Street bus station and working on a story about Royal Victoria Hospital surgeons treating bomb victims convinced Day that becoming a physician would give him a better opportunity to allay such suffering. Now a retired doctor, his photographs offer viewers an opportunity to look back on that fateful summer.
“Aftermath of a gelignite car bomb explosion, Oxford Street bus station, July 21st, now known as “Bloody Friday,” where six people were killed” from the 1972 series The Troubles by John Day, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
“British soldier on duty in the Catholic Falls Road neighborhood, August” from the 1972 series The Troubles by John Day, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
Day’s photographs let viewers sense the desperate atmosphere of 1972 Belfast in insightful depictions of its relentless undercurrent of tension. It is present in images of playful children sharing the sidewalk with armed British soldiers, in the absurdity of newspaper headlines featuring bombings and tennis matches, and perhaps most poignantly, in his pictures of guileless kids thrust into scenes of funerals, gravesites and too many fiery vestiges of war.
“Breakfast in Belfast City Center, July 5th” from the 1972 series The Troubles by John Day, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
“Waiting for 22 year-old IRA volunteer Seamus Cassidy’s burial, July 31st. Cassidy was shot by a British Army sniper.” from the 1972 series The Troubles by John Day, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
The contrasts and grittiness emblematic of grainy black and white film help accentuate the symbolism in Day’s sensitive and telling compositions. The enduring quality of the monochromatic imagery of “The Troubles” reverberates with the tragic ubiquity of all warfare. Likewise, it confers a universal feeling to Jamie Johnson’s portraits of an ostracized group. For me, this intensifies their emotional impact and provokes a somber questioning, “why does hatred persist?”
For more information about this exhibit, go to: https://leicagalleryboston.com/exhibitions/
Feature Image: “Kittens, Cigarettes and Gucci” 2018 from the Growing Up Traveling series and book (Kehrer Verlag 2020) by Jamie Johnson, courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.
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