This month, Friends of Chantry will be hosting a photography exhibition celebrating fifty years of portraits of the famous and notorious. Taken by long-time Chantry resident and renowned photographer Tim Mercer.
Judi Dench
Judi Dench
The retrospective features his portraits from the 70s to the 2020s. He is a portrait photographer who has captured the great and the good from all walks of life and his five decades of experience have left him with a list of sitters that would be the envy of many. Tim's compelling photographs have a stillness and poise, the sitter revealed in a combination of beautiful lighting and exquisite composition.
Tim worked freelance for magazines such as the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times, Observer, Elle, Harpers & Queen and Tatler and his work is also in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, V&A and Royal Academy.
Tim credits his painter father as a major influence, watching him set up his easel and canvas gave him ideas on how to construct his portraits like a painting. Using a Gandolfi camera he picked up as a student at the Royal College of Art, where he was a pupil of Bill Brandt, he spent 40 years capturing his subjects using this tripod camera, a very different piece of kit from the handheld cameras used by his contemporaries.
In his time he has captured Enoch Powell, famous for his ‘rivers of blood’ speech, sporting carpet slippers at his Belgravia home, HRH The Prince and Princess of Wales in a private shoot, Calvin Klein in a cupboard, Beryl Cook, Ian McEwan, Prince Harry, Jonny Wilkinson and Damien Hirst to name a few.
Denis Healey
British Labour politician, who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979.
"I photographed him in his office at the House of Commons, he had been on holiday for a month in Greece, and he had just returned from “a very good lunch”!. I had a pretty assistant and every time she bent down to set up my lighting he flicked elastic bands at her backside which he found highly amusing." (Tim Mercer)
This free exhibition runs at Holy Trinity Church, Chantry BA11 3LJ from 25th October 2024 until 22nd November 2024. Opening night is 6pm-8pm on Friday 25th October. Donations are encouraged and welcomed by Friends of Chantry. There is also an evening with Tim Mercer on Friday 1st November at 7pm where he will tell the stories behind the pictures (£5 on the door, Holy Trinity Church, Chantry).
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