Garry Stuart

Hirael, North Wales

1976

Garry Stuart photographed Hirael in Bangor while a 21-year-old postgraduate student at University College of North Wales. He had begun working in the community in late 1975, with the photographs in this gallery dating from 1976.

Hirael had grown around Hirael Bay and Port Penrhyn, with longstanding connections to the North Wales slate industry and to seafaring. By the mid-1970s, parts of the community were being cleared, terraced houses demolished and residents rehoused as its physical and social character changed.

Stuart worked with a Nikon F loaded with Kodak Tri-X film. He approached people directly in the street, explained why he was photographing Hirael and often returned with prints. Regular visits to the Hirael Community Centre helped him become familiar to residents, and he was sometimes invited into their homes for a panad (a cup of tea).

"The people of Hirael would look directly into your eyes, fixed you with an honest gaze, and their life experiences were etched into their faces, with a wry smile never far away. Unfortunately, their community, housed in small stone-built terraced cottages, was being eroded on all sides by "progress." It was evident that this unique Welsh sub-society would not survive the changes. These photographs capture their character and spirit, taken in 1976 before they were washed away by the tides of time."

- Garry Stuart

"It’s often said that the photographer, not the camera, creates the photograph, and that’s true to a certain extent. However, when something makes you feel good and confident, it can contribute to producing good work. On my first day in Hirael, armed with my black Nikon F and a single roll of TriX, I captured a portrait that I consider one of my best and most significant, even after forty years as a professional photographer. It was a head and shoulder portrait of Willie Gordon (above) - a local Chapel Deacon, a veteran of the battle of the Somme, and decorated for Valour - set against the backdrop of the shuttered street where he was born. I take great pride in that photograph and what it represents to me."

- Garry Stuart