Author: St Ives Archive

For the first time, St Ives Archive is collaborating with local photographers to put on the Secret Photo Show, a two-day art sale to raise money for the Archive.

The show will include works by a talented group of photographers from a range of specialities and expertise. All photos, to go on display next week, were taken in and around St Ives, complementing the Archive’s own collection of 35,000 images and the photographic heritage of the town.

To support these incredible local photographers, join us on the 5th and 6th of April at Harbour View House in St Ives (see poster below). Until then, be sure to check out their photography and creative practices by visiting their websites and social media profiles below.

We hope to see you at the Secret Photo Show, and who knows, you may even take home a beautiful print by a photographer you never knew!

James Warbey

Warbey is a professional photographer based in St Ives, capturing the beauty and magic of the sea and the surf. His work is regularly featured in publications like Local, Oceanographic and Salt Water and all of his images are available as fine art prints on his website.

Website | Instagram

Georgia MacGregor

Georgia runs a boutique hotel in St Ives, Cornwall, with her husband Ant where you can find a small selection of her travel prints on display. Her background is in interior design which she continues to practice at Harbour View House. To browse and order her bright and beautiful prints, please visit her website below.

Website | Instagram

Oli Riley

Tegen Veal

Tegen is a young photographer based near St Ives with a passion for the sea and the environment. She loves exploring different techniques and processes within photography and the creativity it offers. Her practice also includes experimenting with lumen prints and interviewing locals for her “connected to water” series.

Instagram

Jackson Whitefield

Jack is an artist who lives and works in St Ives. Inspired by his immediate surroundings, he works across photography, film, drawing, bookmaking and site-specific earthworks. To learn more about his art, photography and publications, be sure to visit his website and profile on Instagram.

Website | Instagram

Caleb Gibbens

Caleb is a Cornish surf photographer, journalist and filmmaker, whose photos and writing has been featured in publications like Carve and The Surfers Path. He is also an editor at Local magazine, and you can find examples of his work along with prints for sale on his site.

Website | Instagram

John Chard

Born within a stone’s throw of the harbour, John loves chronicling the changing seasons around St Ives’ historic port, as well as other locations around West Cornwall. He offers a wide range of prints and gifts on his website and takes on private commissions in the local area.

Website | Instagram

Barrie Walker

Tom Wedge

A passionate photographer living in St Ives, Tom is known for documenting stunning sunrises and natural phenomena around the coast. His nighttime photography of star trails and moonrises is just as magnificent. Find more of his work on Alamy below.

Alamy | Facebook

Anthony Gribbin

Anthony is a painter and photographer based in St Ives. He is the director of the National Acrylic Painters’ Association and a regular exhibitor at STISA open shows. His art can be described as Geometric Abstraction, often mixing layers and planes, colours and patterns.

Artwork

Keith Mason

Cornwall being his favourite place in the world, Keith has captured many gorgeous scenes in and around St Ives. He takes family portraits, commercial headshots, cast images for shows, pictures at gigs, and other events. Check out his website and Facebook for more.

Website | Facebook

Toby Davies

Toby is a photographer living in St Ives, specialising in film and black and white photography. The natural landscape and old buildings feature in his work alongside travel scenes and striking portraits. Follow his Instagram account for more.

Instagram

Nik Read

Owner of Meor Design agency in St Ives, Nik is a natural storyteller working across all aspects of brand strategy. He specialises in the hospitality, tourism, food and drinks industries so pop over to his Instagram for tempting food shots and beautiful lifestyle photography.

Website | Instagram

Alex Chirita

Alex was first drawn to street photography when he moved to London from Bucharest, experimenting with digital and film. After relocating to St Ives during the pandemic, he loves photographing the stunning coastline and light-filled streets of the town.

Instagram

Samuel Crookshanks

Sam is a photographer, musician, poet and surfer living in St Ives. He specialises in black and white film photography and recently held his first exhibition at Black Seal Gallery. To discover more of his emotive film collection, visit his Instagram profile below.

Instagram

Tom Gaunt

Tom is an artist from St Ives, working mainly with photography to inform artworks created using sculpture, printmaking, and bookmaking. His focus revolves around the local rich industrial heritage and landscape and explores the relationship between the two. You can find his work via Instagram, and his website.

Website | Instagram

Chris J. Dawe

Based in Carbis Bay, Chris paints in acrylics and used to work as an imaging scientist and professional photographer. He’s also working on a long-term photographic project using equipment that allows him to shoot infrared landscapes of local landmarks. The project is called ‘Where Human Eyes Fail’.

Artwork | Facebook

The refresh of our website has spurred us on to modernise our Archive “catalogue”.  For many years we have been using two separate systems, one for recording scanned photographs and the other for recording acquisitions.  In order to provide a single web browser-based search facility we have, with the help of Cornwall Council Cultivator funding, obtained a new “catalogue” system from Metadatis Ltd. called Epexio.

We have set up a small in-house implementation team to manage the task of moving from the old systems to the new.

Once implemented, the longer-term task of creating appropriate catalogue records for the tens of thousands of items that have been acquired can start.  This includes developing a training package and training several “trainers” who will then be able to pass on their skills and knowledge of the new catalogue system to all those interested in helping.

A project of this size not only takes a huge amount of dedication and input from all our volunteers, it also requires financing.

If you share our commitment to preserving our heritage and making our archival information more accessible for current and future generations, why not donate to support our new catalogue project. 

The implementation team will provide regular progress updates.

The Archive Centre was asked to put together a display to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of John Passmore Edwards. Over the past few months, two volunteers sifted through the information and photographs held in the archives and put together a display to be held at the St Ives Library. 

From humble beginnings, Passmore Edwards worked to establish a successful business and dedicated 90% of the money he made to fund buildings to enrich the lives of others. Over a space of 14 years, 70 major buildings were established as a direct result of Passmore’s bequests. These buildings included 24 libraries along with hospitals, schools, orphanages, museums, gardens, and drinking fountains. Twenty of the seventy buildings are in Cornwall, with one of them being the library in St Ives, opened in 1896.

To learn more about the life and legacy of John Passmore Edwards, visit the Greta Williams Room in St Ives Library. The Passmore Edwards display will be on view until the 30th March and throughout the month, visitors will be encouraged to share their own memories of the library.

The St Ives Archive are delighted to have been featured in the launch edition of Cornwall Heritage Trust’s new magazine, An Gwithyas, which is Cornish for ‘The Custodian’.

Written by Cornwall Heritage Trust’s CEO, Cathy Woolcock, the article recounts Cathy’s first visit to the Archive, including a pleasant discovery of family photographs from our collection.

Thank you, Cathy, for visiting! We hope to welcome you back soon. In the meantime, we encourage everyone to check out her wonderful write-up above.

St Ives Archive is open Tuesday to Friday, 10:00 am – 1:30 pm. If you would like to visit us, you can book a time in advance here.

St Ives Archive opened a pop-up Archive at 1A Bedford Road, St Ives, between the 12th and 17th September as part of this year’s St Ives September Festival. The purpose of the pop-up was to raise awareness of the wealth of local historical information that is held by St Ives Archive in their Research Centre in Carbis Bay, by making it more accessible to locals and visitors alike in the centre of St Ives during the popular festival.

The focus of the displays at the pop-up centred on the history of the Old Vicarage Flats (which can be found in Street An Pol, next to the Guildhall) and the Archive loved welcoming visitors who have memories of the building throughout its past history, as well as any memories of Street An Pol (or Shoot/Shute Street as it used to be known).

Photo caption: Elephants walking up Tregenna Hill, probably part of a parade to advertise a circus in town. At the bottom of the hill on the left is Mrs. Wall’s boot shop. Just out of sight beyond is the newly-opened Cornish Bank, opposite which stands the library. Behind the crowds in Tregenna Place is the Consolidated Bank in High Street. c1910

St Ives Archive is excited to have been a part of this year’s St Ives September Festival! In addition to having a ‘Pop-up Archive‘ during the Festival, there were guided walks and specialist history talks around town. A huge thank you to Trustee Tony Mason, social historian Janet Axten, volunteer Madie Parkinson-Evans and all of our volunteers and trustees who contributed to and helped at the Pop-up Archive.