FREE PHOTOGRAPHIC OMNIBUS (50th Anniversary) - DANIEL MEADOWS

Festival Exhibition

Location: ARGOS - Bay View Shopping Centre

Open: 7th October

***Daniel Meadows and the Free Photographic Omnibus, a repurposed 1948 Leyland Titan PD1 with Duple coachwork, formerly of Barton Transport, Chilwell, Nottingham. Manchester. September 1973***

In 1972, as a student at Manchester Polytechnic, Daniel Meadows began experimenting with ways of doing documentary work with people, not to them.

That spring, in the city's Moss Side district, Daniel opened a free photographic shop where he ran weekly portrait sessions for passers-by. He found this way of working as agreeable as the pictures it produced, and made up his mind to extend the project by putting it on wheels. First, though, he needed money.

Daniel spent much of the next year crowdfunding, securing sponsors and applying for grants, and by September 1973, his ‘Free Photographic Omnibus’ was ready!

At its heart was a 1948 Leyland Titan PD1 double-decker bus which Daniel had bought for £360 and repurposed — somewhat crudely, for there was never enough money — as his home, gallery and darkroom.

On 22 September 1973, aged 21, Daniel Meadows set off on his long-planned adventure and over the next fourteen months, travelling alone, he covered 10,000 miles and visited twenty-two towns and cities. Parked up in shopping centres and on high streets Daniel ran free portrait sessions for all-comers, developing their pictures overnight and giving them prints the next day.

He photographed 958 people.

***John Payne, aged 11, with pigeon Chequer and friends the White brothers, Michael and Kalvin, Portsmouth. April 1974.*** *©Daniel Meadows*

“Meadows was making a different kind of portrait, one more susceptible to the changing cultural climate of the decade, with a greater feeling of collaboration, or at least a sense of the subject controlling the photographer rather than the other way around... Pop-up studios are popular today, but in the 1970s this was a unique initiative.”
- Gerry Badger: Another Country, British Documentary Photography Since 1945, pp. 115 & 156 (Thames & Hudson, 2022)

22 September 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of the start of Meadows' bus journey, an event which will be celebrated with an exhibition at the Centre for British Photography, London (opening 28 September), a new book from Bluecoat Press, three new editions from Café Royal Books (CRB), and a special guest speaker spot and public exhibition at this year’s Northern Eye Festival.

All festival exhibitions are FREE to visit.

www.danielmeadows.co.uk