Bridget Davies FRPS

Bridget was awarded fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in October 2023 for her book project about Berlin.  The elements assessed were her statement of intent and the physical book itself.

Viewing the Book

Below are a few images of the book; however the book can be read on the Issuu Website which has a page turning facility.  Archive images are not included in this version.    Note that the screen displays two double page spreads atg a time.   The actual double page spreads were A3 size.

Click here to view Part 1 of 2 through Issuu

Click here to view Part 2 of 2 through Issuu

Details of the Book

Bridget made the book submitted for assessment herself.  She chose this option to give her greater flexibility in terms of papers and layouts.  She used end papers in the Bauhaus style, as the Bauhaus movement was founded in Berlin.

The book contains 45 of her own images, plus four additional archive images from the time of the city’s division.

The book includes nine gatefolds/fold out pages, which allow the display of larger landscape format images. The first of these occurs on the back of the title page. The image on the left of juxtaposed old and new buildings is intended to signal the huge changes in Berlin.

Behind the flap there is a photograph of Bridget’s map from the 1970s. She thought that a map of the image locations would be helpful to orientate readers.

The fold out pages comprised close up, or partial views of the buildings in question, with the gatefold page revealing a wider view.  The two images below illustrate this.

 Statement of Intent

‘Return to Berlin

‘My primary aim with this project was to record my impressions of how the city had changed since I lived and studied there 45 years ago. Back then, I wrote a dissertation about West Berlin newspapers’ coverage of local post-war events. The division of the city, and its reinforcement by the Wall were central to this. I read the physical newsprint in enormous tomes and visited locations in both East and West Berlin which featured in the stories. I felt as if I was walking through history, a sensation which I experienced again when I returned.

‘This book is shaped by my experiences all those years ago, as if filtered by my personal historical lens.  My tale is of the present, alongside shadows of the past. Some are clearly visible, others obscured.’