It was 50 years ago this month that Concorde was revealed to the world at the Paris Air Show. As senior photographer for British Airways Lewes’ Bob Tracy saw its legend grow.
Bob Tracy learned his craft as a newspaper photographer – and puts his unique take on photography down to one man. “I had a mentor on the Braintree and Witham Times who used a 35mm camera,” he remembers from the café of Lewes Depot. “I realized that with a 35mm you could take interesting, more visual stuff with wide angles and perspectives that other people weren’t doing.” At the time most professional news photographers used speed graphic or twin reflex cameras rather than 35mm.
In 1969 Bob took his varied portfolio, gathered from stints working with the Braintree and Witham Times, Portsmouth Evening News and West Sussex Gazette, to British Airways where he became a senior photographer in their film and photographic office for eight years. His brief covered everything from technical shots of BA’s fleet to travel to places which were just opening up to tourism. “It was the early days of holiday brochures,” he says. “We had to be inventive. There weren’t guides readily available so we had to explore the country quickly. When we went to Sri Lanka we couldn’t go to the north of the island because the Tamils were fighting a civil war, but the tourist board lent us a gunboat and a helicopter so we could fly all over the island.”
This story is from the June 2019 edition of Sussex Life.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the June 2019 edition of Sussex Life.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
TAKE YOUR TIME
Dean Edwards’ new cookbook features delectable recipes that you can slow cook or stick in the oven. Here’s a selection of the best
Decorative art
Not simply functional, treat your walls like an extension of your personality
ON THE FRONT FOOT
The rugby legend took the reins at Sussex County Cricket Club in 2017, rekindling his love for a sport that first won his heart on the village cricket fields of North Yorkshire
NAKED AMBITION
In the 1980s, Christine and Jennifer Binnie partied with Boy George and Marilyn and bared all as performance art collective The Neo-Naturists. Now they are working together to gain the recognition they feel they deserve
ROCKET MAN
Astronaut Tim Peake has come a long way since growing up in Westbourne and attending Chichester High School for Boys: 248 miles above Earth, to be precise. But, he says, life on the International Space Station has a lot in common with family caravanning holidays
Revolution man
Lewes’ most famous resident Thomas Paine may be the greatest propagandist who ever lived. But how did a humble customs and excise officer ignite the touchpaper for revolution in not one but two countries?
THE DIARY
17 exciting things to do this month in East and West Sussex
All in a day's work
Meet Tim Dummer, who has helped keep Midhurst’s Cowdray Estate shipshape for an impressive five decades
My favourite Sussex
Bruce Fogle is an author and a vet with a practice in London who has lived in West Sussex with his wife, the actress Julia Foster, since 1989. He recently became president of RSPCA Mount Noddy near Chichester
10 OF THE BEST Meat-free restaurants in Brighton and Hove
Brighton is often rated one of the most vegan-friendly cities in the UK. What these restaurants prove is that plant-based food doesn’t have to be puritanical – at all of these places you’ll find big flavours and a desire to push the envelope
