Diesel House Christmas Exhibition

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Love Photographically

Barbara Chandler celebrates romantic love in a new exhibition

West London photographer and journalist, Barbara Chandler, who lives in Chiswick High Road, celebrates Valentine's with Love, an exhibition of framed photographs at the Nick Allen Gallery/shop, 27 Battersea Bridge Road, SW11 (020 7738 1313).

It opens Thursday 5th February with a party night from 6.30pm and 9.30pm - everybody welcome. An all-day viewing hosted by Nick Allen and Barbara Chandler is on Saturday February 7th. The show continues through February, open gallery hours. Signed and dated framed
photographs in contemporary clear acrylic "box frames" are priced from £85.

Barbara Chandler is a journalist who first started seriously taking photographs around 25 years ago. She has no formal training. Her pictures have been exhibited in many galleries and sold to many collectors and home owners.

As a single mother, Barbara Chandler brought up two daughters first in Chiswick (living in Glebe Street, W4) and then in Acton (Avenue Gardens, W3). She has now re-married and lives back in Chiswick again. She writes for Homes & Property in the London Evening Standard every week.

Her photographs of Poland were shown at the Posk gallery in Hammersmith in a series of three
exhibitions. She had her own stall selling cards and prints in Portobello Market for four years.

The photographs for Love were taken in Britain, Poland, France, Italy, Finland and Russia. They
express love in many ways. Romantic love is the strongest theme, picturing couples in public places (parks, streets, cafes, the beach). They are lost in their own private and intimate world and have been photographed unnoticed. These tender observations include couples of all ages in photographs spanning 20 years. An elderly couple walk hand in hand along the glistening sands of Bexhill beach; Italian lovers kiss on the bow of a boat, heading towards the island of Procida.

The theme of love extends to mother love and family love, religious love and "graffiti love" - the
artistry of Beatles' memorials sprayed on the wall at Abbey Road, for example. There is even animal love, as a mother pig nurtures her piglet. In Russia a cupid cavorts across the ceiling of Catherine the Great's Summer Palace.

Barbara Chandler's photographs are rarely posed. Most are taken unobserved. They are in black-and-white, with colour where appropriate. She says: "As I wander around public places, sometimes for hours on end, suddenly (and occasionally) there is a moment when a
picture 'happens' and its so-called 'composition' and meaning seem to me far and away above anything that could have been arranged."

February 3, 2004