Tina Carr and Annemarie Schone took the pictures they have now self-published in a book entitled Tynescapes with the backing of a Kodak bursary three decades ago.
Although they did exhibit the results at the time within the portals of the Northumberland County Archives, the rest of the project was put on ice – until the success of another book gave them the confidence to dust down their pictures of old.
Tina said: “We published a book about the Roma, with a bit of funding from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which did reasonably well, so that gave us the confidence to do Tynescapes on our own.”
They duly formed their own publishing brand, Hexpress, and the big, bold collection that reflects their journey on foot – from the source of both the North and South River Tynes down to the sea – is on book shelves now.
Tina, who comes from North Tyneside, and Annemarie, from Germany, first met when they were both working on a Royal Shakespeare Company production at the Roundhouse in London.
Annemarie was studying stage design at the Sadler’s Wells theatre school at the time, while Tina had been commissioned to do the front of house photography for the RSC.
“The play was such a disaster, the two of us sat in the bar drowning our sorrows,” laughed Tina.
On the plus side, though, they discovered they shared a common passion for reflecting man’s interaction with the environment and they have worked together ever since.
They remained in London for another decade, capturing the evolving nature of the urban and industrial landscape as the rising unemployment and strikes of the 1980s took their toll.
But once they felt they’d exhausted that as a subject, and feeling the call of the wild, they moved to a cottage in Wales and turned their lens on a rural landscape shaped by a mining heritage instead.
Tina said: “We went to look after somebody’s house to see what it was like living in the countryside and found ourselves stuck in the middle of nowhere, while it rained every day for six months – we really wondered what we were doing there!
“But the following summer was so lovely, that we ended up renting a little cottage of our own for £12 a week. Because we have always lived on a shoestring, we have always had to live near whatever we wanted to photograph to keep costs down.”
The time in Wales sparked their interest in the history of lead mining, which led them onward to Alston Moor and, when Tina’s family circumstances drew them back to her native North-East, the spur to finish the Tynescapes project they started all those years ago.
The eccentricities of their approach to photography are such that they present an interesting tableau to passersby.
Annemarie said: “We use an old-fashioned, large format camera – complete with film and a cloth – and it takes the two of us to check that we’ve got the right view through the lens.
“So we turn up on location with camera and tripod and rucksack and picnic and map – it’s all very old school.”
Further information about their work and links to their books can be found on their website at www.simply-solar.co.uk
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