Michael St Maur Sheil is the photographer who has spent eight long years on a photographic project that he feels passionately everyone should try to understand just how much was sacrificed by very young men who went to war, and very large numbers never returned, or returned with mental and physical scars that never healed, and of the many families who lost loved ones in just four years at the start of the twentieth century.
Mike invited me to this exhibition that was staged in St. James’ Park on the day that marked the centenary of the start of the “War to End All Wars”. Sadly that was to be over-optimistic. I came along with photographer Geoff Dann, and met up with Adam Woolfitt and his wife Penelope to see this body of work that conveys the history of that conflict in a way that mirrors what happens with the passage of time, and this is aptly described in Mike’s title for the exhibition and an accompanying book that was on sale. These were the fields of great hard-fought battles, yet time has mellowed their shapes, and he has captured for instance the soft beauty of the zig-zag trenches in undulating grassy banks when seen from above as he over flew in a microlight with slanting sunlight.
In others he captured the scene in snow and frost because that was the season in which the men fought. He had brought along the actual football that had been used by men trying to forget the horrors that invaded their long hours in the trenches, and a present day soldier was photographed holding the very ball against a backdrop of the ball in situ that Mike had shot.
The exhibition was opened by HRH the Duke of Kent KG, after Mike gave a short explanation as to how the project came about, and it was pointed out that one of the visitors was a German who was requesting that the exhibition actually be taken and put on show in Germany, which hopefully will show how reconciliation is possible with the passage of time, which was the theme of Mike’s photographs; he does not want them to be stuck in a Museum, he wants this to be a travelling exhibition that is brought to new generations of children, so they may learn what happened a century ago and hopefully to try to pass on a message of the futility of war, and how hard-fought were the freedoms we all now take for granted.
But also it should not go unsaid that Mike shows here a consummate talent for a great photo, I hope in putting together this gallery of images it will inspire others to pay a visit to this exhibition which is open till November 11th, but will travel around thereafter till the centenary of the end of those hostilities in 2018.
The Official Website for the exhibition is here
The Official Website for the exhibition is here
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