Stewart Bale 2.0 - documenting Liverpool

Online exhibition

National Museums Liverpool holds an extensive collection of photographs by Stewart Bale Ltd. The pictures show the everyday places where people worked, shopped and enjoyed themselves.

In this online photographic exhibition, we have invited amateur and professional photographers who use the web service Flickr to recreate Stewart Bale photographs from our collection. Each of the photographers was given a seven day deadline to photograph their subject.

Stewart Bale Ltd

Stewart Bale Ltd was an advertising and printing business in Liverpool that specialised in commercial and architectural photography. The client list included famous Liverpool names such as Cunard, Meccano and Coopers.

An exhibition Liverpool Memories was held at the Museum of Liverpool Life in 2002 featuring Stewart Bale photographs and reminiscences and the National Conservation Centre's Come Dancing exhibition in 2003 featured Stewart Bale photographs on a dancing and live entertainment theme.

Flickr

Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application, allowing users to upload their digital photographs, sharing and tagging them. Most of the photographers involved in this project came to our attention by tagging their photographs 'liverpool'. You can view a slideshow of the most 'interesting' photos tagged Liverpool on Flickr.

Flickr is often heralded as an example of 'Web 2.0', a controversial name attached to a new generation of web services that make use of collaboration, sharing and tagging to create 'social software'.

The mass ownership of digital cameras and use of Flickr and other online photo sharing services has led to a transformation in the documentation of daily life.

The Photographs

Click on the images below to compare the Stewart Bale and 2006 versions of these photographs.

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