A Lens on Life
The things that are most important to you; and I’m not just talking about your job, or family (which are important in their own right) are usually rebounded via someone else’s passion. Think about it, almost everything you love wasn’t yours to begin with. Your favourite song, came second hand from your best friend. Your cousin may have introduced you to your first love. Or the primordial urge you have to collect stamps, passed on from your Grandfather.
It’s not often you will find these treasures on your own. The mystic hand of fate reaches out, sending guides from every corner of the globe. For life is only half lived without passion.
According to Harold Burnell Jones his great passion in life is first and foremost his wife. But long before they met he fell in love with photography, which serendipity introduced him through the Fricher’s.
After their house in Wallasey was bombed in the Second World War the Burnell Jones’ relocated to Ruthin in North Wales. The climate of Harold’s adolescence was filled with persecution and violence, but hope was never lost. At the age of fourteen, curiosity in tow, anything new had the potential to be interesting. When a photography store opened in town Harold became friends with the owners. As they come alive in his imagination, his enchanted face speaks of them as an inspiration; in life as well as art. He made a nuisance enough of himself that the Fricha’s eventually employed him to do some odd jobs and errands. His interest in photography grew along with his knowledge, until he had the money and skills to buy his first camera. He chose from the Corfield Periflex range; brought out in the 1950’s. they were innovative for using a tiny periscope, which was lowered down behind the lens instead of a range finder used in a regular SLR camera (1). This first buy remains with Harold, though the fondness of the memory is of people, not machines and his interest in photography remains a side note to their story.
Harold’s mentors were a refugee couple from Germany, who fled to the UK. Mr Fricher had the misfortune of Jewish blood and they were forced to leave their home to save their lives. Before the war started his wife fell pregnant and gave birth to twins, unfortunately the medical profession was not impartial to anti-Semitism which had already permeated all facets of society. Upon discovering the father of the children was a Jew the doctor said he would have killed them had he known earlier, but managed to do worse by taking them away, never to be seen again. The devastated coupled fled the country. Bound for England Mrs Fricha went by one route and her husband escaped through Spain, to arrive with only his cigarette case. A happy ending was promised; and though they never found their children the refugees did manage to find each other. Their happy ending became a thriving camera store and a new life in Wales (2).
The Fricsher’s passion for photography was passed to Harold, but also his fascination in human condition, a person’s story and their survival. In his life as well as his art he prefers to remain an observer, never appearing in his work he captures others. Waiting for the moment when they are unaware of themselves, lost in thought and the world around them, instead of constructing a shot.
Surprisingly he did not pursue it as a career in his youth, even though he now claims it was the only thing he was good at! After finishing high school in Ruthin he went to technical college in Liverpool, making the trip to and from Wales every weekend. As a qualified dental technician Harold decided he would see the world so he took a job on the luxury cruiser; The Coronia which is still in service today, as a commercial trade ship (3). It was fondly renamed The Love Boat, after Harold experienced love at first sight when he met his wife; Nelly, who he has been with for 38 years. Unfortunately married couples are not allowed to be on the same ship together and so Nelly had to give up her stewardess job and the sea (4). But Harold made his own sacrifices; using the money he had saved to buy a new camera in Japan he bought Nelly an engagement ring in New York. As he recounts the memory, he adds with mock sadness that he never got the camera.
At this point, Harold’s interest in his family history interrupts. He speaks of his ancestor Captain Nicholas Burnell, who was a privateer in 1742; a legalized pirate who worked for the government plundering French and Spanish ships, while leaving British ships alone (5). Speaking of his ancestor with boyish pride and enthusiasm, he admits that when he cruised through the Caribbean at night, he would lie on the deck feeling the gentle shudder of the ship, the moon shining, his thoughts turning to Nicholas. Describing the feeling as though he was surrounded by an aura, he insists, whether you had a pirate for a relative or not the image of buccaneers comes to mind (6).
Harold’s fervour for the past is infectious; when we first met after taking one look at him and gleaning he was a photographer I believed he would be on my side in the fight against digital. Imagine for a moment a seventy-year-old man full of eccentricities and English plum. His white hair, though short remains unkempt; never quite clean-shaven stubble persists along his chin; his effervescent eyes are slightly dulled behind his brown tinted, gold-rimmed glasses. And his favourite two pieces of clothing include his beige safari vest and brown sandals (though never with socks). Compared to myself; a twenty-year-old writing student in a band shirt and Cons. The debate continues, as I won’t let the issue drop; here is a sample of our conversations:
Alisha: With your interest in history you don’t find that going from SLR to digital photography is betraying what you love?
Harold: Oh No
Alisha: I’m sorry, I feel very strongly about digital.
Harold: I know you do, I remember mentioning it to you to my embarrassment, when I met you - no I don’t think it is, I think it’s a progression. In just the last two weeks Canon have bought out a 16 million pixel SLR, and Nikon have brought out a 12 million pixel one, and they, now are the equivalent of the best you can get off a film camera. I think it’s nostalgic and I can understand people still wanting to dabble with film and developing it and printing it. But as far as I’m concerned now it’s pretty much dead. I think digital is the way life is now (7).
Strangely enough the ‘young person’ is not the advocate for change. Harold’s interest in the present is likely why he has retained his vitality and interest in life, viewing the past not with nostalgia but delight. I must say here that it was not always like this; on Harold’s first date with computers he did not fall head over heels. In his own words he was dragged, kicking and screaming to computer classes, for his work with the Queensland State Archives. He was transferring all the records to microfilm by photographing the hard copies with huge cameras. After the forced labour, all in the name of technology Harold resigned from his archivist position in May of 2000 (8). When his colleagues asked him what he would do with all this newfound free time Harold loftily replied that he just might do something with computers, and he left stepping carefully around the drool puddles collecting on the floor from his work mates’ open mouths.
The terror Harold originally felt for computers now turned to fascination. Wasting no time, he bought an old Mac (which are better suited for photography) from a Government auction and began to acquaint himself with the machine. After decades of film, chemicals, lenses and all the paraphernalia of SLR cameras, the ease and precision of digital won out and he now owns four digital cameras. He now scorns those (myself included) who hold onto the past and persist with the outdated, denying the tsunami of technology.
Harold seizes the opportunity to prove his point when a wedding photographer scurries by our table in the Hilton’s Atrium Lounge. Breaking off the interview mid sentence, he half rises from his seat as he squirms for a better view of his adversary. “What type of camera has he got?” He mumbles half to himself, “that’s the first thing I look at.”(9) He smiles apologetically then sighs, laughing at the unsuspecting photographer, who stops to change lenses as the wedding party fix their hair using each other as mirrors. He tries to point out to me the advantages of digital; there’s no need for an assistant as they would have nothing to hand you, except maybe a cappuccino. His interest lies in the subject, not the apparatus. When capturing people, he loves to wait for the moment of distraction; that certain look, the moment of beauty is there because they remain unaware of it.
Though he was never trained as a ‘Professional Photographer’, (whatever that may be) Harold does wedding photography and modelling folios, but at the moment he remains intent on panoramas; of cityscapes and landscapes. His love for photography will always be overshadowed by the most important thing in his life; his family, his wife Nelly, and his two sons James and Michael who are never far from his thoughts. Even a few moments in his company, Harold’s explicit passion for life inspiring; for whom life does not begin or end it simply continues.
Notes
1. Kai Griffin. (2004) Corfield Periflex1 [Online]. Available:
http://www.griffinbyteworks.com/photography/equipment/periflex1.html [Accessed 27 Sep. 2004].
2. Harold Burnell-Jones, personal interview, 1 October 2004.
3. National Register for Historic Vessels (2003) Coronia [Online]. Available: http://www.nhsc.org.uk/NRHV/NRHV_Detail.cfm?ID=179 [Accessed 10 Oct. 2004].
4. Nelly Burnell-Jones, personal interview, 1 October 2004.
5. From Harold’s personal research: Census returns for Christchurch 1841. 1851, 1861 and 1871.
Monumental inscriptions at Christchurch and Pilton.
Pilton parish registers.
Family notes received via Harold Burnell-Jones, Richard Desborough Burnell and Cherry Good.
6. Harold Burnell-Jones, personal interview, 1 October 2004.
7. Harold Burnell-Jones, personal interview, 23 July 2004.
8. Harden, L. (2000) Australian Society of Archivists; Queensland Branch Newsletter [Online]. Available: http://www.archivists.org.au/pubs/newsletters/qld200005.html [Accessed 27 Sep. 2004].
9. Harold Burnell-Jones, personal interview, 23 July 2004.