The North Laine Photography website is home to the images that were exhibited in
what was Brighton's most popular independent gallery. Nestled in the heart of Brighton’s
legendary North Laine, our gallery was found down the narrow cobbled street that
is Kensington Gardens, above the quwerky shopping world of ‘Snoopers Paradise’.
This beautiful 950sqft space was open from September 2003 to January 2010.
It was a must for locals and visitors alike, unpretentious and welcoming, with friendly
staff always happy to answer questions and help in any way they could.
We earned a reputation for high quality images that profiled the most popular events
and landscapes of Brighton and Hove. Alongside this sponsoring new photographers
in very diverse exhibitions that exposed a wider context of living in the city.
At NLP we strived to follow the ethos laid down by founder NK Swallow to exhibit
and sale prints of Brighton then use the funds and the profile gained to expose
and sponsor less commercial artists. Thus revealing more of what living in our city
meant to it’s different communities. In short to reveal different perspectives of
our lives through any photographer with raw talent and a fresh perspective. The
operation was run as a ‘not for profit’ enterprise.
Renowned for his iconic Brighton images, Nigel was most often cited as the photographer
who 'captures the essence of Brighton and Hove', it is sales of these prints and
the annual calendar that allowed NLP to fund 3 major competitions and host such
an eclectic range of exhibitions by both established and up and coming photographers
as well as assisting and exhibiting community projects.
The competition guaranteed large visitor numbers for new artists to a firm city
favourite. Over 50,000 people came to see the 100ft long (including up the stairs!),
7ft tall "Peoples Gallery" mosaic of entries in our final competition exhibition.
Featuring at least 1 image from each competition entrant. Shortlisted work was exhibited
on panels opposite the main mosaic wall.
From this (as in the previous 2 competitions) 4 finalists showing potential to put
on a great exhibition, were given over half of the Gallery Space for 5-10wks each.
Plus technical assistance to 'do what they want' from our in house studio based
in New England House. We also gave £1500 cash first prize and £500 cash to the runner
up.
A studio manager was at their disposal for scanning, test printing and generally
getting often unexhibited artists work upto exhibition standard. Whilst Nigel concentrated
on helping with encouraging the artists initial exhibition concept, pr for it, designing
and booking press adverts for their shows, exhibition posters and write ups and
coordinating the event. Each photographer went through the process with the studio
staff to gain as much professional experience as possible. Some used this to great
effect. A few came with an exhibition already ’nearly there’. Most with just a notion
of what they might like to use the space for. Our priority was to encourage them
in their ‘dream’ show as not many spaces give over completely to the artists vision.
We then hung the exhibition with them – expecting them to get involved at this stage
as much as any other.
All studio assistance was free as was the gallery space, staff to help hang and
curate their show.
Final exhibition prints were the photographers to keep at direct cost of production
prices (i.e.ink,paper,mounting) payable if/when they could afford it. (but to bare
in mind that as most of our time was spent on non profit work, finances were always
tight - so please pay this bit towards it when they could!).
Their brief for their exhibitions was to do ‘whatever you like’ with advice and
support the priority. We didn’t limit them to Brighton themes though these were
always the most popular shows.
The result was some of the most talked about exhibitions of the year, gaining critical
acclaim and local and national press coverage often by first time exhibitors given
the professional treatment by NLP.
What we liked more than anything was someone giving it ‘a go’ as much as we were.
For 6 years we ran as this 'not for profit' gallery and studio. Our last sponsored
finalist show by Sarah Boyes ended in October 2009. The gallery wound down it’s
‘not for profit’ operations in the face of the ‘credit crunch’. The end game being
to bring out a book on the exhibitions and calendars that were produced from 2000-
2010. A turn of the millennium collection.
Hopefully (!) clearing remaining loans used to support the ‘not for profit’ years
and finally closing NLP altogether once the book was published.
The whole project started in 2000 with 3 years of NK Swallow having occasional exhibitions,
building a commercial portfolio and running calendar and print sales from street
pitches in order to get the whole thing off the ground.
In all 3 years portfolio building and on the street, then 6 years running a very
eventful and ‘long hours’ studio and gallery operation and 1 year winding it down.
10 years in all. Time to move on!!!
We weren’t looking to be overly cultured in an ‘artworld’ sense – though the shows
sometimes went that way. More so we wanted to draw in all the public with both popular
and more demanding work simultaneously exhibited.
We were often erratic, took chances on pushing projects for artists that we probably
shouldn’t of, sometimes that resulted in great shows – sometimes not so great. We
ran things too close to the edge financially to do what we wanted to produce.
In summary we were pretty much an ‘old skool’ Brighton set up that gave it a shot
and added something to the Brighton vibe for a few years.
We hope to publish the book for release in October 2011.
Our online collection will constantly be updated with fresh images from the archives.
But we will also add new work from our established photographers and via online
communities such as flickr. We do this mainly in search for images to fill the enormously
popular ‘Brighton and Hove Calendar’ but obviously look to find ‘hidden talent’
to whom we are happy to lend our free advice to.
We see such online sites as embodying much of the ‘open to all’ attitude the gallery
was run with during its lifetime.