'A World Observed 1940 - 2010' - Dorothy Bohm

Showing at the Manchester Art Gallery until 30th August, this is an excellent collection of black and white and colour photographs spanning 70 years, by Dorothy Bohm, who emigrated to this country from Lithuania to escape the Nazis, just before World War Two. She studied photography in Manchester in the 1940's and eventually set up her own photographic studio there. Many of her portrait photographs from that time are shown, and it was interesting to note that in none of them was the sitter looking directly at the camera. This may have been a technique of the photographer because, as shortage of materials meant that she was restricted to four exposures per client, two were taken with a pose of their choice and two with a pose of her choice (and these were invariably chosen by the clients).

She met her husband of 49 years whilst studying in Manchester and they later travelled extensively overseas because of his business, enabling Dorothy to move away from purely indoor shots to include landscapes and, primarily, street scenes with a human element. The majority of her photographs are of women and children and she felt it was far easier for women photographers to take some of these shots as they could blend into the background more and also appear less threatening than men.

Her introduction to colour was through polaroid and the collection includes some lovely shots of this type. Also included is a mock dark room and short film, shot around the 1970's, with Dorothy Bohm showing how she used to choose and develop her exposures.

Dorothy was one of the founders of the Photographers Gallery in London and she is still an active photographer into her 80's (there were some photographs of Manchester taken this year).

This is a very interesting collection of photographs with a very warm and human touch. There are also some rather quirky pieces, like her series of photographs of 'torn posters'. Well worth a visit.  http://www.manchestergalleries.org/.