bert hardy
bert hardy' s classic 1951 picture of two young women sitting on railings at blackpool .
by 1964 the bert hardy style had ceased to be a novelty, and as bert had expected the advertising work began to slow down .
the work of bert hardy features in a centenary exhibition at the photographers' gallery in london .
hardy returned to picture post and covered the korean war and vietnam war for the magazine. after the magazine closed in 1957 hardy worked in advertising until his retirement ten years later. bert hardy died in 1995 .
in his images of an everyday britain emerging from the trauma of the second world war, bert hardy’s photography is suffused with pride, humanity and warmth. all photographs: © bert hardy estate / getty images .
the life and times of albert hardy text © 2008 graham harrison. photos © bert hardy / picturepost / gettyimages, brian harris, jeff moore and graham harrison .
( l) historian stephen humphrey holds a southwark council blue plaque to mark the birthplace of bert hardy while artist max marshall drills holes. ® the hardy family stand below the plaque following its unveiling by bert’s son mike hardy on october 12th 2008. photos © graham harrison .
2013 sees the double anniversary of the photographer bert hardy and picture post, the magazine with which he is inextricably linked .
in 1936 hardy’s nine year association with the central photographic service ended when bert and his girlfriend dora decided to get married .
essential reading: bert hardy, my life and of this our time, a journalist’s story 1905 - 1950 by tom hopkinson .
bert hardy recalled that a letter was posted on the notice board and stunned members of staff sat watching the announcement on television news .
loved in britain, bert hardy is one of the original photographer’s photographers yet his name remains remarkably unknown outside of the british isles .
in 1948 bert hardy shot a story for picture post on the gorbals, a deprived working class district of glasgow. in the gorbals bert encountered poverty far greater than he ever experienced as a child in blackfriars .
bert hardy, army photographer, became a sergeant and for a while military life provided a leisurely break from the bustle of assignments for picture post. but hardy’s value to the weekly magazine was not forgotten in his absence .
within bert hardy’s lifetime the vast dominion of britain’s empire dwindled from one quarter of the world’s surface to a scattering of far flung rocks and islands .
as the dignitaries gathered in a group at the entrance, bert stepped across to join them and began speaking in french. they were terribly courteous, bert recalled. when the dignitaries moved to go in bert moved with them. the police saluted, everybody bowed and bert was in the opera house .
our man in korea: picture post prints from 1950 of bert hardy and the inchon landings at the hulton archve in london. photo © graham harrison .
“very effective lighting. ” bert hardy’s written comment on a print of him lecturing in richmond, london in the late 1980s. photo © jeff moore .
blue for bert. stephen potter of the local history library in southwark, who nominated bert hardy for a southwark council blue plaque stands at the entrance of the priory, hardy’s birthplace. potter thought the photographer was neglected in the area where he was born and grew up. following a public vote bert was awarded a blue plaque which was unveiled in october 2008. photo © graham harrison .
bert hardy wrote that the decline of picture post went into top gear as the magazine drifted into lightweight stories and features on film starlets. aware of the problems on shoe lane life magazine approached hardy with the offer of a staff job .
bert’s other advertising clients were to endure better. lucozade, nestlé, heineken ,
operation in singapore closed down and bert sailed for home and civilian life. within a week of his return hardy had accepted an offer of a full time job at
now his own boss at criterion, hardy could supply features in his own name .
the work of the legendary photographer bert hardy features in a special centenary exhibition at the photographers' gallery in london. hardy' s ability to playfully evoke time and place is typified by his seaside study maidens in waiting, taken at blackpool in 1951 .
despite its difficulties picture post still gave bert the tight deadlines he thrived on, and the guarantee that he would see published nearly every story he shot. like many photographers before and since, bert hardy needed the buzz of seeing his work in print .
james cameron remembers, “on the korean assignment, as on many others, i was fortunately reinforced by my old mate and colleague bert hardy, and one of the good things about that was that bert was no more of a john wayne type than i. ”
channel crossing, another of bert’s ideas, made seven pages in the popular weekly for which william davis was paid £26. bert’s cut was £1. 50. an argument ensued but bert stayed on until both he and bertran collins were sacked for earning too much .
hardy took many other pictures that day which can now be seen for the first time .
( 1) tom hopkinson recruited bert hardy when he was working as editor of picture post. he wrote about it in his autobiography, of this our time (1982) .
on march 24th 1945 bert hardy was taking pictures on the river rhine when he was spotted by general dempsey. dempsey was about to become the first allied general to cross the river, and unaware the photographer was working for picture post ordered bert to record the occasion .
“everywhere i look, and most of the time i look, i see photographs, ” said hardy. this midlands street scene from 1948 he entitled pretty girls of leicester. bert hardy' s centenary exhibition will run until 26 may 2013 at the photographers' gallery, 16 - 18 ramillies street, london w1f 7lw. (all photographs courtesy sheila hardy. )
years were to pass before an office acquaintance became affection but a bond between them grew. “i was not the woman behind bert, ” says sheila in recognition of the difficulties dora must have endured bringing up two sons whilst bert travelled the world on back - to - back assignments. but it is sheila who today carries the bert hardy flame with enduring rigour .
but 60 years after it was first published, the legendary photographer bert hardy’s blackpool belles is at the centre of a bizarre case of mistaken identity which fooled fleet street and the bbc .
bert hardy was soon matching davis and collins with silly stories of his own, notably a fish gone to hospital which made a four page spread in an early edition of picture post .
in 1942, as a fit man of fighting age, hardy was called up by the british army. following training, bert was assigned to to the army film and photographic unit (
hardy even felt the lighting in the images emanated a rembrandt - like quality, and so did picture post who loved the results of hardy’s first assignment. even life magazine published the photographs .
the photographer bert hardy would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. though a gifted war photographer, hardy’s spontaneous and sharp images of people in everyday situations were more characteristic of his work. an exhibition of his images is at the photographers’ gallery in london from 4 april to 23 may
in the years following the war bert documented many of the struggles for independence for picture post .
for the duration of hardy’s army service, tom hopkinson ensured the hulton press paid £5 a week into bert’s bank account, a sum which covered the mortgage repayments on his family house in eltham. bert could even afford £200 to buy a bugatti that had once belonged to an italian count .
as his son terry took over much of the freelance work from odhams press, bert hardy began a new career in advertising. at the beginning, bert’s 35mm images and picture post style of story telling gave his work a fresh candid look. he was busy and the money was good .
bert hardy was born in london in 1913. he started work as a laboratory assistant in a photographic agency. after buying a small plate camera for 10 shillings he began getting his photographs published .
squatting miserably in the square outside pusan station were sixty men, teenagers to old men. dressed in rags and tied together with ropes their degradation brought back the horrors of belsen to bert hardy .
bert wrote later that advertising meant hard work and good money, but it never meant anything more than that. without the money though, bert and sheila could not have afforded the perfect home .
around this time bert was approached by edward steichen who was researching images for his landmark exhibition, ‘the family of man’; but because steichen only had a short time in london, and bert was still based in his brother sid’s front room it wasn’t possible for bert to show his best pictures .
life in the elephant. picture post and hardy’s contact sheets from 1949. photo © graham harrison .
bert hardy, a photographer whose images of life in england during and after world war ii are considered classics of british photojournalism, died on monday in oxted, south of london. he was 82 .
the eldest of seven children, bert hardy rose from humble working class origins in blackfriars, london, leaving school at age 14 to work for a chemist where he learnt how to chemically process photos .
in paris for picture post, bert hardy recalled the french press were a law unto themselves. there were twenty of them in the place de l’opéra that night, including newsmen working for paris match .
on leaving odhams bert was immediately re - engaged as a freelance and in his first year freelancing – with the help of his younger son terry – bert’s work for odhams brought in £4, 000 .
the scene that confronted photographer bert hardy and writer james cameron outside the station at pusan, south korea in september 1950 was never to make the pages of picture post, but what hardy and cameron were to document was to rupture the heart of the magazine so that it was never to beat as fully again .
read more about the exhibition of hardy' s personal vintage collection which will be launched in may 2016 .
saying how much they liked his work capa and silk invited hardy to join them for a drink. but the officer’s mess was for commissioned officers and war correspondents only. as a sergeant bert wasn’t allowed in .
picture post published the inchon landings on october 7th 1950, the images winning bert another encyclopaedia britannica award .
had bert accepted the offer of staff photographer from life magazine his career might have taken a different path. but sheila says he didn’t need to. bert had already proved himself alongside his american peers at inchon .
on a warm july day in 1995 bert and sheila lunched at their favourite pub, the royal oak at staffhust wood, then went into oxted. calling in at his opticians to have them tighten a screw on his glasses bert took a seat, and there in a seat at the opticians in oxted, bert died .
there’s a wonderful free photo exhibition currently on at the getty gallery, eastcastle street, central london, showing the work of photographic legend bert hardy, who made his name working for the the picture post photojournalism magazine .
photography became part of bert hardy’s life in 1927 when the young cockney got a job as a messenger and developer and printer at the central photographic service, which was run from a gloomy basement near charing cross station .
gordon fraser, 1985. soft cover. condition: very good. no jacket. 1st edition. inscribed by bert hardy. this is the paperback edition. a fine copy. inscribed by author (s) .
, hardy and collins opened the doors of their own agency, the criterion press, at 172 fleet street .
dominated by american forces, the inchon landings of september 15th 1950 were the second most powerful sea - borne invasion after d day. the only british journalists present were photographer bert hardy and writer james cameron for picture post .
bert made up for this in paris. detailed to record the liberation of the city on august 25th hardy photographed the free french and american forces as they marched into the city amid a carnival atmosphere of cheering crowds and waving flags. after four days of heady celebration bert was dispatched east to cover the liberation of brussels and antwerp .
bert sat a couple of the girls on the rails by the sea - front and as the sun shone and the girls engaged in animated conversation the sea breeze caught their skirts and with the click of a simple shutter hardy produced the most famous image of his entire career on the cheapest box brownie. bert had made his point .
general dempsey crossed the rhine and bert photographed him stepping onto the eastern bank. hardy then took the return crossing on the prow of dempsey’s motor launch to get pictures of the victorious general with the german shoreline in the background .
gordon fraser, london, 1985. hard back. condition: bery good. dust jacket condition: very good. 1 st edition. . red cloth cpver - silver writing on spine - - illustrated dj showing photo of bert hardy - - 192 pages - - man, manu b / w photos - - wars, bali, mountbaten etc africa - -, etc. - dedicarted and signed by bert hardy :
to peter jones, lovely meeting you, very best wishes - - bert hardy 28 / 7 / 88 .
book given to peter n. johns, the magnum photographer. size: 20 x 130 x 290 mm. signed / dedicated by author .
as with the gorbals piece, bert was to document life in a poor district with his friend, the loyal communist bert lloyd – an eloquent writer known later for his broadcasts and involvement in the revival of british folk music .
in 1956 bert’s marriage with dora ended and he moved into his brother sid’s front room with sheila marshall. bert and sheila had met in 1942 at picture post where sheila worked as secretary and picture researcher to the picture editor .
bert hardy found himself working for odhams press, and it wasn’t long before his salary came to the attention of the managing director. bert was politely told that odhams was run by accountants and because his £3, 000 a year salary (then the highest paid to any photographer on fleet street) was too generous, he had to go .
priory buildings on webber street just off the blackfriars road: home to the hardy family. photo © graham harrison .
although it wasn’t long before hardy’s images of cycling girls and rural landscapes became a feature of the magazine’s front and back pages, it was the work of the bicycle’s staff photographer, george moore, which was to change bert’s career .
it never seemed like work ,
said bert hardy .
photography was always good fun .
hardy was a gregarious human being, blessed with a londoner' s wit which made him instantly likeable and nobody' s fool. he became the best known and loved of all the photographers who made their names on the pioneering magazine picture post .
bert hardy was the star troubleshooting photojournalist on picture post, britain’s most influential picture magazine. but a story he shot in 1950 during the korean war seemingly precipitated its decline and fall. on the seventieth anniversary of the launch of the mass - market weekly graham harrison turns back the pages of photographic history and looks forward to a reassessment of hardy’s career .
. part of a contact sheet depicting a couple in a basement in the elephant and castle, south london along with a self - portrait of photographer bert hardy as he winds on the last frame of his film, january 8th 1949 .
there was to be no such success with the second major story hardy and cameron sent back from the conflict in korea .
sheila says it was a wonderful way to go. no pain, no farewells. the great photographer’s time had come, and that was that. another generation would be left to look and review what bert hardy had achieved in his lifetime .
after taking his photographs bert walked back to the burmese front line where he was pressed on what he had seen. bert suggested if they really wanted to know, the burmese should go and find out for themselves, and returned to rangoon .
“bert, on the other hand, was plying his trade upright in the open, cursing the military exigencies that had organised this invasion in the middle of the night. one of my enduring memories of that strange occasion is of bert hardy on the seawall of blue beach, blaspheming among the impossible din, and timing his exposures to the momentary flash of the rockets. ”
the early years of bert hardy’s life had coincided with the high water mark of the british empire. in the 1920s 600 million people were ruled from london. young bert, it seemed, was at the centre of the world. the second world war ensured however, that the tide of empire had changed for good and with it the balance of power in the world .
the show is timed to coincide with the double anniversaries of bert hardy – who was born a 100 years ago – and the ground - breaking picture post magazine, which launched 75 years ago in october 1938. sadly, neither are still with us .
now focus your mind south of the river thames on the district of southwark, where a short stroll from the site of the tavern in which chaucer had his canterbury pilgrims gather you will find the birthplace of the much loved english photographer, bert hardy .
in conjunction with a book, bert hardy: my life, published in 1985, the photographers gallery put on a retrospective exhibition and also produced a video in which hardy talks about his life. a television programme for channel 4 followed in which many of the people he had photographed in the immediate post - war years in tiger bay, liverpool and the gorbals were traced and contributed their reminiscences .
as for the international recognition bert hardy’s work deserves, there is a gallery in southwark that might be able to assist. it is housed in a former power station that was constructed and decommissioned in bert’s lifetime, and now stands proudly by the river thames near the location of shakespeare’s globe theatre, and a short stroll from the site of the tavern in which chaucer had his canterbury pilgrims gather .
fires burned on the far bank. the odd tracer bullet appeared to fly lazily through the night air. suddenly bert’s picture post colleague macdonald hastings threw himself to the ground and shouted to bert to do the same. the tracer bullet had been fired at them .
“brilliant stuff, ” wrote tom hopkinson in a letter to bert when general dempsey crossing the rhine made the cover of picture post .
a couple leaning in for a kiss in piccadilly in 1953, british sailors in gibraltar in 1954 and a vicar comforting a girl in an east end bomb site in 1940 are a few of the images iconic picture post photographer bert hardy thought good enough to take home .
on d day, june 6th 1944, the allies invaded occupied europe in the largest sea - borne assault in history. as an army photographer bert hardy was ordered to photograph the first of the allied wounded as they returned to england from the beaches of northern france .
albert hardy, photographer: born london 19 may 1913; twice married (two sons); died oxted, surrey 3 july 1995 .
bert hardy reached the camp to find the press and allied military personnel wandering around in disbelief. 50, 000 people had died in bergen - belsen during the war. emaciated bodies lay everywhere. more than 10, 000 were to die from disease and illness following liberation .
tom hopkinson said that out of all the photographers the writers at picture post asked to work with, bert’s name nearly always came first .
not content with his own developer hardy took a soldering iron to another leica and customised the shutter so that it could synchronise with flash at 1000th of a second. bert was no fool. even today’s lecia m7 cannot achieve flash synchronisation at such a high speed without an adaptor .
in 1938 hardy became one of the first photographers to use a leica 35mm camera. after working as a freelance until being recruited by tom hopkinson, the editor of picture post. hardy became famous for his photographs of the blitz and in 1942 was drafted into an army photographic unit .
so bert hid his leica beneath an oversized dinner jacket and watched from the pavement as a number of french dignitaries arrived wearing grand plumed hats .
hardy’s original contact sheets and negatives were meticulously researched to uncover work which was never published in the magazine and which may never have been printed before. the main exhibition reveals the extraordinary versatility expected of picture post photographers. the final section showcases some of hardy’s more familiar images which remain bestsellers today .
hardy narrowly missed being sent to cover the dieppe raid (the photographer who did go was killed). hardy was with allied troops that took part in the d - day landings in june 1944. hardy, receiving the pay of an army sergeant, also photographed the liberation of paris on 25th august. he followed the troops into germany and in one picture recorded general miles dempsey crossing the rhine. he also took photographs of concentration camp victims .
in 1942 hardy was called up into the army and put into public relations for the war office. as the war office supplied stories to all the magazines, hardy' s ambition was to get a story into both picture post and illustrated each week; this he managed to do on numerous occasions .
hardy became famous for his work published in liberal photojournalistic magazine picture post from 1941 until the magazine' s closer in 1957. a self - taught photographer, hardy became the post' s chief photographer quickly, after his first work was published. it was a study of firefighters during the blitz .
but bert produced nothing he was happy with in two years and through the work he had started doing for esso magazine and bowaters began making contacts in advertising .
to my great excitement, we found a remarkable new photographer. bert hardy was a young cockney, the eldest of seven children, who had left school at fourteen. he left on a friday afternoon and started work on saturday morning in a printing and developing works at ten shillings a week with sixpence an hour overtime .
bert was born on may 19th 1913, the first of seven children to carpenter albert ‘seagull’ hardy and blanche, his charlady wife. the family home consisted of two small rooms at the top of priory buildings on webber street just off the blackfriars road, where they slept at night packed like sardines into one double bed .
with the light gone, hardy and cameron took an empty landing craft back to the mother ship where bert was informed that their landing had taken place on the wrong beach, one still being softened up by ‘friendly fire’. other reports indicate the north korean forces may have already surrendered by the time blue beach was reached .
hardy went on to shoot two stories which he seemed to enjoy immensely – hop picking in kent, and the port - wine harvest in portugal – but his constant travels were putting pressure on his personal life, and although they moved house from eltham to blackheath, bert was no longer getting on with his wife dora .
born in 1913, hardy was the eldest of seven children. the family lived in two rooms – and one double bed – in a building near london’s south bank
hardy was dispatched to newcastle where an air raid had been reported. after scratching around he found a dimly lit brick - lined tunnel, “where nervous people sometimes went at night”. using the available light from a few strung - out light bulbs bert took pictures hand - holding his leica at 1 / 4 of a second .
self taught and using the small leica camera instead of the traditional larger press cameras, hardy was recruited by the editor of picture post, tom hopkinson, in 1941 .
in the warehouse fire, bert’s suit had been burnt and his camera damaged. tom hopkinson ensured picture post paid the cost of replacing both for the criterion press photographer .
back in london in the picture post darkroom on shoe lane, bert’s photographs were pasted together to produce a panorama which was published in picture post on april 20th 1957 .
when bert hardy came in to see me he was in his twenties and already an experienced cameraman. to try him out i offered him a difficult assignment. the blitz had started and i asked him to take pictures inside street shelters. no flash must be used and the pictures must make the reader feel he was inside with the shelterers in semi - darkness while bombs were falling. bert passed the test triumphantly; i at once took him on the staff and he was soon a mainstay of the magazine .
bert hardy, born in london, worked his way up from a lab assistant to become a photographer. his talent flourished as a staff photographer on picture post, joining the illustrated magazine during the second world war. as well as travelling with the armed forces, his images of the blitz are amongst the finest and closest to the action taken .
bert hardy always said it was the few years in advertising which enabled him to buy his farm in limpsfield chart and, as the farming activities decreased, he and his wife made it a base from which to explore the new opportunities of lectures, exhibitions and print sales. for many of us, too, it became a place of pilgrimage .
moore used a 35mm leica. amazed at the detail in moore’s prints hardy saved up and bought a second - hand model – probably a leica i – which he described as old, black and with a fixed 50mm f3. 5 standard lens. “i never looked back after buying my first leica, ” bert was to say in later life .
bert was invariably the good companion who’s instinctive images unfailingly conveyed an empathy with the poor and underprivileged showing that whatever misfortune was thrust upon them these people retained their human dignity .
bert knew life would pay three to four times his picture post salary, but he also knew the american giant would publish only one in every four or five stories he shot .
for some time bert and sheila had been thinking about buying a cottage in the country. in february 1964 sheila spotted a farm in surrey advertised for sale in the sunday times .
then began the period for which bert hardy' s work is best remembered: liverpool, tiger bay, the girls by the seaside and the gorbals, where his intimate pictures of the inside of houses and close - ups of people contrasted well with the cooler exterior shots of bill brandt. he worked for hours with the writer bert lloyd on that story and much appreciated the teams that tom hopkinson built up of writers and photographers, which avoided the friction that can sometimes happen between the writing and picture - making sides of photo - journalism .
although authenticated reports had been filed – but never published – by picture post correspondent stefan schimanski and photographer haywood magee in july 1950 and the times, on wednesday october 25th 1950, was to confirm the ill - treatment of political prisoners by the south korean police in chilling detail, hopkinson knew the combination of james cameron’s words and bert hardy’s pictures would create controversy .
bert hardy’s images for ‘life in the elephant’ exposing the area’s pattern of life are complimented by bert lloyd’s lyrical introduction: ”its voice has the rasp of trams, trains, trucks. its eyes have the blaze of street - stalls, eel - stands, pin - table arcades and chestnut cans. its anatomy is decked with sooty bricks, cast iron spikes and the marble pillars of pubs. its heart is that of its people – kind as a housewife, rough as a worker, busy as a tradesman, wide as a wide - boy. ”
never inclined to photograph corpses bert realised that he had to record what he was witnessing. he knew no one would believe such things could happen were they not to see photographic proof .
the french got nothing exceptional at the opera that night, and bert’s composite panorama made a double page spread. but it was to be his last great picture published in picture post .
one of bert’s earliest advertising shoots was on the strand cigarette campaign for the bensons advertising agency – a campaign distinguished as one of the least successful flirtations between cigarette advertising and french philosophy .
even for james cameron and bert hardy who had produced the fateful story, resignation was a luxury neither could afford. to keep them out of trouble the pair were dispatched to the remoteness of the himalayas in a search for the dalai lama, who, following the chinese invasion of tibet, had escaped lhasa and was in hiding in the chumbi valley near the indian border .
having taught himself about apertures and shutter speeds by trial and error, and how to gauge distance by pacing between lamp posts, hardy’s career as a photographer began with a photograph of royalty .
nevertheless tom hopkinson recalled, “as i turned over hardy’s prints when they first came out of the darkroom, i knew that i had never had a better picture story in my hands. ”
the british were given two permits. “and the french police were making sure that’s all we had, ” said hardy. picture post – then paris match’s main rival – received no accreditation .
twice a day bert went on a round of west end chemist shops collecting and delivering film and prints, often jumping onto the backs of passing lorries and carts to save on bus fares .
bert had passed his test triumphantly, and was to become the mainstay of picture post. assignments were to come thick and fast. the world was at war. london was being bombed .
bert’s older son michael also became a photographer. mike had begun working in the picture post darkrooms, but when the magazine folded he landed the job as paris photographer for the daily express .
hardy was dispatched to blackpool where the lord mayor presented him with an amateur camera. with this most basic of devices plus the minor adaptations of a close up lens, a yellow filter and an improvised cardboard viewfinder, bert roamed blackpool’s golden mile looking for images. he searched without great success until he hit upon the idea of asking the showgirls from the pier theatre to help out .
‘the ideal picture tells something of the essence of life, ’ hardy wrote. ‘it shows some aspect of humanity the way the person who looks at the picture will at once recognise as startlingly true’
bert thought he must also have got onto the roof of one of the buildings to take pictures of firemen fighting the blaze from the tops of their ladders, although he couldn’t recall doing so .
gordon fasier, 1985. soft cover. condition: very good. soft cover version published by gordon frasier, london, 1985. this copy is signed and personalized by the author. it reads ,
duane and lucille, very best wishes, bert hardy 6 / 4 / 85 .
a unique copy of an amazing photographic autobiography. $ 150. signed by author (s) .
the same prints kept by hardy, who died in 1995 aged 82, go on display — and on sale, from £2, 500 — at the photographers’ gallery from may 13 to july 3 .
when hardy viewed his negatives under a green safelight there was nothing to see. another half hour in the super - soup produced the faintest of highlights. frustrated, bert put the films back in the developer and went to visit his mother across blackfriars bridge. he let himself in to her house but as everyone was asleep made himself a cup of tea. he thinks he may have dozed off .
two months after shooting the fire - fighters, bert left bertram collins and criterion to join picture post as a staff photographer on a freelance basis. his guarantee was £8 a week, plus expenses .
in london there was a bigger wedding to cover. in what bert described as one of england’s periodic fits of royalty fever, the future queen elizabeth was marrying the duke of edinburgh in westminster abbey .
unsuccessful in their quest for the tibetan spiritual leader (who was not to flee tibet for another nine years), hardy and cameron settled on a story including the life of the monks at the monastery at pedong, situated high on a trans - himalayan trade route between india and tibet (picture post, february 24th 1951). for a while on the silk road hardy thought seriously about becoming a buddhist .
during the 1930s rising wages and falling production costs had turned cycling into a popular sport. bert joined a cycling club and combining his passion for cycling with his photography began submitting photographs to the bicycle magazine .
when bert broke the news to mr duke, his boss at central photographic, duke was so embarrassed at the idea of a man keeping a wife on less than £3 a week that he sacked him .
the first assault took place around 6: 30 am following a heavy bombardment by the us fleet on north korean positions. the section where hardy and cameron were would not see action until high tide that evening .
far east command in kandy, ceylon and then to singapore where he was detailed to organise lord louis mounbatten’s press section along fleet street lines. bert streamlined the developing, printing, captioning and world wide syndication .
hardy was to escape angry mobs in sudan and egypt, cover the mau - mau campaign against british colonialists in kenya, document nationalist unrest against the british in cyprus and photograph yemeni tribesmen fighting british troops in aden .
although bill brandt was first assigned the gorbals shoot, it was bert’s pictures of glasgow which gave the story it’s gritty atmosphere, and went on to win the photo sequence section in the first encyclopaedia britannica photographic awards .
after the post closed, hardy worked successfully in advertising, before he retired in 1964, aged 51. he bought a small farm in oxted, surrey, and spent the reminder of his life there with wife sheila .
on his return to london hardy took his films to the criterion darkroom and put them in his super - soup to develop. knowing the images were underexposed, he doubled his usual processing time from sixteen to thirty minutes .
most of picture post’s employees were sacked. but in a good will gesture nika hulton, sir edward’s russian wife, asked bert to stay on to work for the remaining hulton publications including lilliput, farmers weekly and housewife .
when he heard that a photographer could earn good money on fleet street – then the heart of the british newspaper industry – hardy bought a plate camera for 50p from a pawn shop on the cut opposite london’s old vic theatre .
suspected opponents of the south’s authoritarian nationalist leader syngman rhee, the captives were political prisoners. bert wondered how a fourteen year old could hold political views. it seemed evident that they were about to be taken off and shot .
bert was, i am sure, as alarmed as i was, but there was one signal difference in our roles: he had to take the pictures, and it was long ago established that one way you cannot take pictures is lying face - down in a hole. i spent considerable periods of time doing that. bert, on the other hand, was plying his trade upright in the open, cursing the military exigencies that had organized this invasion in the middle of the night. one of my enduring memories of that strange occasion is of bert hardy on the seawall of blue beach, blaspheming among the impossible din, and timing his exposures to the momentary flash of the rockets. that is the difference between the reporter' s trade and the cameraman' s. his art can never be emotion recalled in tranquillity. ours can - or could be: the emotion is easy; the tranquillity more elusive .
hardy later served as a war photographer in the army film and photographic unit (afpu) from 1942 until 1946, covering the d - day landings in june 1944, the liberation of paris and the allied advance across the rhine .
having published the inchon landings feature immediately, editor tom hopkinson delayed publication of the story of the ill - treatment of political prisoners until he had confirmed every detail face to face with hardy and cameron in picture post’s shoe lane offices .
they drove down to see it, and although the farm needed a lot of work the two londoners bought it and moved in that april. undeterred by their lack of knowledge bert and sheila began learning everything about farming from scratch .
most of the exhibited photographs were taken using hardy’s second - hand leica camera, which he adapted to shoot in poor lighting conditions. this is piccadilly circus in central london, a place to meet and escape the postwar gloom in 1953 .
bert hardy was born in 1913, the eldest of seven children in a poor working - class family. leaving school at fourteen, he started work as a delivery boy for a film processing laboratory. captivated by photography, he bought a secondhand camera and started on a career that led to his employment as a full - time member of picture post, the foremost magazine of its time. bert became a mainstay and his images are amongst its best known. a selection of his stunning images of britain at war and in the austerity years that followed are reproduced in this first major book on his work. this long overdue tribute marks the centenary of his birth and places him amongst the best of twentieth century photographers .
with the dismissal of editor tom hopkinson by owner edward g. hulton in 1950 after the publication of a piece (illustrated by hardy) showing south korea’s treatment of political prisoners in the korean war, the magazine went into fairly swift decline .
original prints of the inchon landings. hopkinson wrote, “as i turned over hardy’s prints when they first came out of the darkroom, i knew that i had never had a better picture story in my hands. ” photo © graham harrison .
just hours before the british were to make the crossing bert set up his contax on a tripod on the heights at staaland to photograph the river at night. the rhine, crowded with barges and landing craft was lit by an eerie moon .
as great - grandson of queen victoria, brother to the queen of sweden and supreme allied commander in south east asia, the amiable mountbatten was as aware of his own importance as he was the power of the photograph in promoting it. bert’s
born 100 years ago, hardy is probably the best known of all the picture post photographers. his stories cover situations as diverse as the korean war, the portuguese rice harvest, fashion on the french riviera, italian immigrants in britain, and the chinese invasion of tibet. today, his images are still widely used in all contexts from editorial features to interior decor. the images are classic, timeless and transcend territorial and language barriers thanks to hardy’s ability to capture the essence of every story .
as young boys, les mason and his friend george davis were photographed by hardy as they walked arm in arm in glasgow. gorbals boys was taken in 1948 to highlight poverty in the city. the gorbals was among europe' s worst slums .
after picture post folded in 1957, mr. hardy turned down an offer to take pictures for life and worked for several years in advertising, often using ordinary people as models. in 1964 he bought a farm in oxted, surrey, and retired .
bert took to carrying a print of the concentration camp in his pocket which he would show to any german who refused to accept that such things had happened. even then some germans refused to accept that images of the death camps were not allied propaganda .
the exhibition focuses on hardy' s postwar images, when he was assigned to capture the daily lives of his fellow britons. this 1954 photograph, as britain struggled to recover from the deprivations and shortages of global conflict, he provocatively named too many spivs .
the air was thick with rockets and shells as the photographers and journalists became the first invaders to make landfall. with the light fading fast, bert put on a tin hat for the first time in his life and poked his head above the sea wall .
“it had rained that day, and there were a few puddles on the ground. the prisoners were being closely watched by armed guards, but the intense heat must have made them very thirsty. whenever they thought that no one was looking, they would scoop up the rainwater from the ground and drink it. if one of the guards saw them doing this, he immediately set on them and beat them mercilessly with his rifle butt, ” wrote bert hardy. “these guards were in the army of our allies. ”
when the fire - fighter story was published, hopkinson ended it with the famous caption, ”from our rule of anonymity we except these pictures. they were taken by a. hardy, one of our photographers. ” (picture post, february 1st 1941) .
when they were midway across german mortar positions got the launch’s range and began peppering the river with fire, sending sheets of water into the air. dempsey’s launch reached the allied side and everyone took cover as hardy took some more images of the general under fire .
the only photographs bert could get that evening were on his contax at speeds as low as 1 / 25 of a second at f1. 4. the american press working with speed graphics, with a widest aperture of f4. 5, got next to nothing .
in contrast to the squalor hardy often recorded, he was also sent to cover the marriage of princess elizabeth to lt philip mountbatten in 1947. here bridesmaids adjust the veil and train of the future queen as she arrives at westminster abbey with her father king george vi .
in newly independent india, bert photographed the country’s first prime minister jawaharlal nehru, in france the gypsy festival of the black virgin at saint maries - de - la mar in the camargue and in poland the wedding of a scottish girl to a polish soldier in warsaw .
autumn was turning to winter, and the elephant was shrouded in thick smog. all the two bert’s could manage were images of trams and smog, and of smog and trams. that was until they met maisie, a prostitute who’s husband was in prison for robbery .
at this time he also set up a processing house, grove hardy, with gerry grove, who had worked as a printer for picture post, and which was used by many of the younger generation of fleet street and documentary photographers for both their personal and professional work .
what the grand occasion was may be lost in the mists of time, but king george v and queen mary were in regal procession down the blackfriars road in an open carriage when spotting the young hardy with his camera among the cheering crowds, the monarch turned in acknowledgement .
german bombers had started the blitz of british cities, and hopkinson asked bert to do a shoot on the street shelters. he could not use flash and the pictures must make the reader feel they were in the semi - darkness, with the families as bombs were falling .
on july 1st bert crossed the channel himself and was sent to the strategic city of caen where the germans were putting up fierce resistance. amid being mortared and documenting captured german soldiers and nurses at work on the injured he met george silk of life magazine and robert capa.
bert hardy ( 19 may 1913 – 3 july 1995 ) was a documentary and press photographer known for his work published in the picture post magazine between 1941 and 1957 . 
bert hardy (19 may 1913 – 3 july 1995) was a documentary and press photographer known for his work published in the picture post magazine between 1941 and 1957.
bert hardy (19 may 1913 – 3 july 1995) was a documentary and press photographer known for his work published in the picture post magazine between 1941 and 1957.