‘Kids on bikes rule the streets in Syd Shelton’s portrait of pre-gentrification south Dublin’, was the sub-title to the big picture feature in the Observer on 30th April. The photograph was taken in 1985. Sheldon says, ‘you can’t take pictures of children anymore’ and tells of being stopped by the police for photographing some queuing for ice cream a few years ago. I had a similar experience, recounted in a post on 17th August 2018.
Sheldon’s picture is included in an exhibition at the Atlas Gallery called ‘Seen and Not Heard’ devoted to the idea of childhood. For Sheldon it represents a lost world of street play (and sometimes of the streets themselves). The sub-text is that photography of this type is an important part of recorded social history, whatever the fears about invasions of privacy (his photographs were consensual) and darker motives. They tell us how life was and what we have lost in our virtual on-line world – and what we might have again if we rethink our urban spaces.
I doubt that I could (should?, would?) now take the photograph of the Romsey Town Fair included here. But I don’t regret that I did. As well a capturing the innocence of childhood it’s a fragment of how life was and how it was celebrated in a community in 1982. Will such picture be made in this weekend of Coronation street parties and celebrations?