As a website that tries to bring memories of a past time when glamour and photography had another meaning, I must say I was fortunate to find a thread in the “Vintage Erotica Forums” about one of the many clubs in and around London that used the facilities at the Jason Studios in London, W.1. in the 50s and 60s: The North Finchley Camera Club.
The images from his members had been published in many glamour magazines of that time. They hosted activities with many of the best models, such as Teri Martine, Annette Johnson, Nancy Roberts, Maria Frost and many more. Models who also used to work with well-known photographers such as Harrison Marks.
The original thread was created by the son of one of the club’s founder members when he found some photos in the darkroom in his father’s loft.
He shared fantastic photos in VEF, full of histories (and no Photoshop). It was also interesting to see how other members of VEF collaborated and added more images and information about the club’s photo sessions.
I contacted Guy, who authorised me to create this series of posts using the original images and comments.
Through these posts, I hope you can feel what was being part of that beautiful era of glamour photography in the UK.
Martin Sotelano
My dad, Chas, was born in the early 1920s in the house in North Finchley where he lived his whole life. At the outbreak of WWII, he and his brother volunteered for the RAF. Unfortunately, he was invalided out less than 6 months later after contracting T.B. In the early 1950s, he was sent with many other ex-servicemen with respiratory problems to convalesce in Davos in the Swiss Alps. The mountain air was supposed to help them. He may have already owned a camera before going to Switzerland, but he bought a 120 film format camera there. He used it for the 6 months he was in Switzerland, but when he returned to England, he started to make photography his main hobby.
He and his friend Cecil, an electrician by trade who lived a few doors up the road, constructed a darkroom in the loft of my dad’s house. Inside it, he had a workstation where he developed his films and created prints using an enlarger. Here is where the North Finchley Camera Club was formed with its founding two members. He had quite a few copies of Spick and Span glamour and Art Advertiser and Model News magazines in the loft, and I believe he discovered in the adverts the possibility of shooting at a studio where amateur or popular models could be hired for photo sessions. Here are the results of many of those sessions.
Unfortunately, I only really appreciated the treasure trove of photos from these shoots after he died, when I was clearing out the house before it was sold. The negatives had been stored in the darkroom, but as they were in the loft, they had been through nearly 70 years of hot summers and freezing winters, not to mention quite a dusty environment. The quality of the negatives has been degraded as a consequence, but I’ve tried to rescue the photos where possible.
Guy
The North Finchley Camera Club 1