Robin Adshead
It seems like only yesterday the late Robin Adshead, Gurkha Major, photojournalist, writer and author, last came to visit. Looking through the diaries, I realised it was in the summer of 2004, 3rd of August; a wonderful English blue sky day.
Since he moved to Spain a couple of years previously, his visits to the UK were infrequent, so it was always a real delight to see him and have his witty company for a few short hours. Each visit was memorable, much of the time spent catching up on our common interests in everything about photography, from the crap images that seem to proliferate the pages of modern newsprint to new developments in technology and our anorak obsessions about rangefinder cameras. Up until his untimely passing last year, Robin was working on the manuscript for a new book on Contax cameras - - my wife Caroline shown here on Robin's last visit, with Robin's most treasured example - which I had promised to publish.
Coming across this photograph recently reminded me of Robin's first book. Simply called GURKHA - the Legendary Soldier, a copy of which he had given me many years back. It's a large format hard back, originally published in 1970 by Donald Moore for Asia Pacific Press Pte., Singapore.
The book is significant in military photographic publishing because it pre-dates by a wide margin the prolifically illustrated books on soldiering such as the French Foreign Legion, The Royal Marines et al published in the 1980s., All the photographs in GURKHA are in b+w and there must be more than 100. There is some great stuff in the true tradition of photojournalism. In his Preface, Robin adds a note for the technically minded,
'all the photographs in this book were taken with 35mm cameras. With the exception of the pictures made in Nepal which were done with Nikon S-2s and SPs with Nikkor lenses, all photographs were made with Leicas. Two M-2Ps with quick wind bases (He meant M2s fitted with Leicavit trigger winders - a photograph of one of which is on page 10 of my Leica MP-MP Questions and Answers book JE.) and two M4s, with lenses ranging from 21mm to 200mm, were used with Kodak Plus-X and Tri-X film. Prints were made by Sing Yew (a first class printer) in Kluang, Johore, Malaysia, and by Graphic Atelier in Hong Kong.'
Robin finished the manuscript for this book in 1967 and had edited more than 5000 images for it, but it took a few more years to find a publisher and negotiate a contract. I saw another copy of this book in mint condition in a second hand bookseller on England's south coast a few years back; dithered about buying it and when I returned to the shop, it had gone! Not cheap either. Robin was tickled when I told him, his natural modesty overcome by the observation that fame sometimes takes a while to catch up with one's life!
Somewhere in the depths of my archives, I have a copy of an interview I made with Robin for the magazine Professional Photographer in which he describes how he made the difficult but stunning shot of a pilot ejecting from a Harrier jet fighter. So far as I know, it's one of the very few images which shows the 'burn' of the rocket on the ejector seat and he made it with a mechanical camera with a manual focus lens. When I find the article, we'll post it here.
In the meantime and to put the record straight in case you haven't read Corrin Adshead's comments, the text of the original tribute to his father Robin supplied by Pete Russell at Military Picture Library, was written by Corrin and his brother Darrell and first published in a local magazine in Herradure, Spain.
Visitors, users and viewers of the foregoing content may copy and re-use it in other internet content sites on condition the source of all material so used is acknowledged with the attachment of the following.
Copyright; Jonathan Eastland
www.ajaxnetphoto.blogspot.com 2006.
www.ajaxnetphoto.com 2006.
This original content may be used in any print media made available for commercial resale.
The products and companies named in this website content are trademarks , registered trademarks or servicemarks of their respective owners or licensed users.
Since he moved to Spain a couple of years previously, his visits to the UK were infrequent, so it was always a real delight to see him and have his witty company for a few short hours. Each visit was memorable, much of the time spent catching up on our common interests in everything about photography, from the crap images that seem to proliferate the pages of modern newsprint to new developments in technology and our anorak obsessions about rangefinder cameras. Up until his untimely passing last year, Robin was working on the manuscript for a new book on Contax cameras - - my wife Caroline shown here on Robin's last visit, with Robin's most treasured example - which I had promised to publish.
Coming across this photograph recently reminded me of Robin's first book. Simply called GURKHA - the Legendary Soldier, a copy of which he had given me many years back. It's a large format hard back, originally published in 1970 by Donald Moore for Asia Pacific Press Pte., Singapore.
The book is significant in military photographic publishing because it pre-dates by a wide margin the prolifically illustrated books on soldiering such as the French Foreign Legion, The Royal Marines et al published in the 1980s., All the photographs in GURKHA are in b+w and there must be more than 100. There is some great stuff in the true tradition of photojournalism. In his Preface, Robin adds a note for the technically minded,
'all the photographs in this book were taken with 35mm cameras. With the exception of the pictures made in Nepal which were done with Nikon S-2s and SPs with Nikkor lenses, all photographs were made with Leicas. Two M-2Ps with quick wind bases (He meant M2s fitted with Leicavit trigger winders - a photograph of one of which is on page 10 of my Leica MP-MP Questions and Answers book JE.) and two M4s, with lenses ranging from 21mm to 200mm, were used with Kodak Plus-X and Tri-X film. Prints were made by Sing Yew (a first class printer) in Kluang, Johore, Malaysia, and by Graphic Atelier in Hong Kong.'
Robin finished the manuscript for this book in 1967 and had edited more than 5000 images for it, but it took a few more years to find a publisher and negotiate a contract. I saw another copy of this book in mint condition in a second hand bookseller on England's south coast a few years back; dithered about buying it and when I returned to the shop, it had gone! Not cheap either. Robin was tickled when I told him, his natural modesty overcome by the observation that fame sometimes takes a while to catch up with one's life!
Somewhere in the depths of my archives, I have a copy of an interview I made with Robin for the magazine Professional Photographer in which he describes how he made the difficult but stunning shot of a pilot ejecting from a Harrier jet fighter. So far as I know, it's one of the very few images which shows the 'burn' of the rocket on the ejector seat and he made it with a mechanical camera with a manual focus lens. When I find the article, we'll post it here.
In the meantime and to put the record straight in case you haven't read Corrin Adshead's comments, the text of the original tribute to his father Robin supplied by Pete Russell at Military Picture Library, was written by Corrin and his brother Darrell and first published in a local magazine in Herradure, Spain.
Visitors, users and viewers of the foregoing content may copy and re-use it in other internet content sites on condition the source of all material so used is acknowledged with the attachment of the following.
Copyright; Jonathan Eastland
www.ajaxnetphoto.blogspot.com 2006.
www.ajaxnetphoto.com 2006.
This original content may be used in any print media made available for commercial resale.
The products and companies named in this website content are trademarks , registered trademarks or servicemarks of their respective owners or licensed users.
Labels: Photography
posted by Ajax at 14.4.06
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