Every once in a while, fate places one person clearly above others in their chosen field or at least the equal of any other at the time.

Frank Meadow Sutcliffe is one such person whose unsurpassed technical skills with the large cumbersome photographic equipment of the late 19th century, combined with an almost uncanny ability to both see and capture the sheer essence of the image before him with an artistic and sensitive feeling, make his photographic images stand head and shoulders above his peers.

Even today, his unmistakably creative style that is pure "Sutcliffe" is considered to have been well ahead of his time.

Born in Headingly, Leeds in 1853, a mere 14 years after the advent of photography as we know it, Frank Sutcliffe was the son of Thomas Sutcliffe, an artist, lecturer and art critic. Thomas owned what was probably one of the first cameras in Leeds and saw the tremendous potential of this new recording medium in the future.

Young Frank was encouraged to explore this new science as a teenager and, no doubt with the his father's experience as an artistic analyst, he learned to use the camera as an creative tool when most others were applying it's use as merely a recording device.

In 1870, the family moved to Whitby where they had often come on holidays and in December the following year, Thomas died at the age of 43. Prior to his passing, he had suggested that Frank look to photography as a profession. (Indeed, Frank is quoted as saying that his Mother had often told him since early childhood that "...she would have me smothered like the Princes in the Towers if I showed any inclination for being an artist. She thought all artists little better than lunatics") This he did as he was now the family breadwinner. His first attempt at commercial studio photography in Tunbridge Wells was less than successful, so he returned to Whitby and set up a studio in an old disused jet workshop.

Whilst he did indeed make a living here, it was his habit of taking early morning and off season wanderings around the local areas and capturing the scenes and people involved in everyday life that we are especially thankful to Frank for. In doing so he preserved a slice of time that has been largely ignored by other archivists. The fact that he applied all his not inconsiderable artistic skills to the taking of these images is not lost on the appreciative audience of today.

Any keen student of photography, and indeed art, could do worse than study Frank Sutcliffe's work for inspiration and instruction on what makes a pleasing and successful picture. His use of the classic rules of lighting, balance and composition as well as the often necessary breaking of those rules are only part of what makes his collection of images great.

One of the greatest talents that Frank Sutcliffe's work displays is his natural rapport with his chosen subject. This is illustrated in his ability to capture and display the intangible qualities of people and places such as emotion, moods and personalities.

In the example at left, "Fetching In The Lines" where Lizzie Alice Hawkesfield is shown holding a longline on the beach at Whitby, Frank has managed to both convey the feeling of what a tough life these folk had to endure whilst at the same time project the soft and gentle personality of this very lovely girl.

Whenever we, the image makers of today feel hard done by with any problems encountered during our photographic forays, we should perhaps think on the difficulties that were part of the Victorian era's photographer's day to day movements. In an article in "The Amateur Photographer" of the 30th March 1900, he said:

"I have been taking photographs with an old camera for twenty five years. A year ago I started in with a new camera. I had got pretty well tired of taking photographs with the old camera. The old camera had, like it's owner, got tired. The screws which held it together had got tired of "biting", they were continually "leaving go" either the front or the back of the camera; either the weight of the dark slide behind, or the weight of the lens before, was like the last straw on the camel's back, just as the weight of the camera and it's six dark slides often felt like the last straw on my back.

I use to fill the slides with plates and go out into the country in search of the picturesque, but before I had got clear of the town, I had forgotten my quest altogether, for the camera began to get so heavy that the picturesque was forgotten and my thoughts were entirely confined to the burden on my back, and the weights I carried in either hand. Yet, as an Englishman, I did not like to feel beaten, so I used to trudge on, the camera getting heavier all the way, till at last a rest was imperative.

If there happened to be a picture near the spot, well and good; if not I either went on or back as the spirit moved me."

Another short anecdote from that article which illustrates the frustrations of the times when dealing with the complexities of the equipment of the day is:

"Every portrait photographer knows too well that in the space of time which elapses between the removal of the focusing glass and the squeezing of the ball of the pneumatic shutter, while the focusing screen is bent or pushed aside, and the dark slide put into it's place, the tap of the shutter turned off and the front of the slide drawn, the sitter is rapidly freezing, and will require bringing to life again before the exposure can be made."