Edinburgh photographer's snaps of life in 1950s on display for first time

By The Newsroom
Published 23rd Sep 2018, 07:55 BST
Updated 24th Sep 2018, 09:16 BST
A boy drinking cola in Stockbridge. Picture: Robert BlomfieldA boy drinking cola in Stockbridge. Picture: Robert Blomfield
A boy drinking cola in Stockbridge. Picture: Robert Blomfield
They are drawn from a treasure trove of images capturing everyday life in Edinburgh half a century ago.

But none of them have ever been shown in public and the photographer is almost completely unknown.

Now Robert Blomfield, an amateur photographer who wandered the streets of the city in the late 1950s and 1960s in search of subjects, is being honoured with his first major exhibition in the city to mark his 80th birthday.

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Blomfield,who spent ten years in Edinburgh, is being recognised nearly 20 years after being forced to give up his hobby after suffering a stroke. The City Art Centre in will display around 60 of his huge personal archive of black and white images after being approached by his family, who had spent years cataloguing and digitising more than 1,000 photographs.

A boy drinking cola in Stockbridge. Picture: Robert BlomfieldA boy drinking cola in Stockbridge. Picture: Robert Blomfield
A boy drinking cola in Stockbridge. Picture: Robert Blomfield

Running from November to March, it will recall how Blomfield, who moved from Sheffield to Edinburgh in 1956 when he was 18 to study medicine, did all of his own developing and printing at home in makeshift darkrooms.

Previously unseen portraits of children playing in the capital’s streets will be on display alongside images of buses on Princes Street, construction work on the Forth Road Bridge and police officers observing the aftermath of an accident on Queen Street.