“When I first came here, someone asked me what I’d seen . . . and I felt like Howard Carter, looking through a little peephole into Tutankhamun’s tomb, when Carnarvon was saying “what can you see?”, and he replied “wonderful things”.
Jane Middleton-Smith – Curator, W. W. Winter Heritage Trust
Winter’s for me as a curator, is a treasure trove of 19th and 20th century artefacts all connected with photography.”
Below are a selection quotes from various customers, trustees and others which describe in their own words the magic of W W Winter.
In every town in every city pretty much there was a photographic studio like Winter’s but they no longer exist and Winter’s still does – it may be the only one that has existed for so long and is still functioning as a photographic studio, and in that they are quite unique.
Studios are really important hubs for the community because people go there at important times in their lives, and they want to have their portrait taken, and maybe generations of people of the community have their portraits taken, and what’s important about Winter’s is that it has an unbroken and continuous visual history of this community. When you first walk into Winter’s the over-riding impression is that this is still a functional studio – and it is – and has been a functional studio for over 170 years.We looked at a box of wet plate collodion glass negatives that could date to the late 1850s/early 1860s and it’s wonderful to think about the sitters at the time and to think that perhaps their grandchildren or great-grandchildren are still coming back to Winter’s, and having their portrait taken without even knowing that their great-grandparents or great great-grandparents were also being photographed at Winter’s.
Dr Kelly Wilder – Professor of Photographic History, De Montfort University, Leicester
I was part of the team that was put together to work rescuing the large format plates from the cellar which were really at risk from damp and flooding. It was the first grant that the Heritage Lottery fund made to a commercial company in the East Midlands, so quite significant in that respect. The scale of the project was obvious to begin with because everywhere you look in Winter’s there are glass plates; on shelves, on the floor, in cupboards – everywhere.
It really contains the history of this city – the history of Derby, from the time of the first photographs that were taken here in the 1850s to the present day – it’s an incredible story.
Jane Middleton-Smith – Curator, W. W. Winter Heritage Trust
We get lots of people contacting us all the time – every week we have people contacting us via phone and email from around the world, (it isn’t just local people), who are doing family history and trying to trace relatives and asking if we’ve got negative or photographs of people that they were related to and we might have photographed.
Angela Leeson – Director, W. W. Winter Ltd
Photographs are such an important document and any collection wherever it is much be preserved. The collection here at Winter’s, and its relevance to the Asian community, as so many were photographed by the company, is just beyond compare, and it has to be maintained and conserved for the future.
What is important is what the studio has produced, how it’s captured the essence of the community of Derby, and that is now present in its archive, and that archive must be maintained – it’s a very visual, a very tactile record of the community that is Derby.
Simon Hill – President, Royal Photographic Society
Winter’s has done very well in welcoming the South Asian community to have their pictures taken in the studio. That’s something to say about their character; number one for them to allow that to happen, and then obviously I think most of them who migrated here would have had a picture taken here.
Anand Chhabra – Founder, Director and incumbent chair Black Country Visual Arts
The importance of Winter’s, taking those portraits, making the men look smart, letting them wear a tie, giving them a watch and a pen, the men came here they worked so hard and sometimes they were working seven days a week. They wanted their families to know that they were OK, they were prosperous, and they were doing well – so those little gestures were important for their parents to know – “Oh our son’s doing really well over there”, even though they probably came from a double-shift here to have the photograph taken.
But it was important, and Winter’s enabled that, and they made it easier for them to look good and the way they posed and the way they dressed. All those photographs that were taken here of Dad and the families and my uncles are still in the house in Bundala in India. They were there because Granny kept them because they were treasured possessions – that was the only time they actually saw their family members – through photographs and coming here to Winter’s.
Susan Jalport – Volunteer, W. W. Winter Heritage Trust
Photography is a test of the power of memory, of connection, and to the stories that bind us together – a story of heritage, of community and of the enduring power of the human spirit – a bridge between generations, a light onto the endless legacy of the south Asian community in Derby, through the lens of WW Winter.
Philip Basi – Programme Leader Media Production & Principal Lecturer TV Production at University of Derby / Independent documentary film maker
Winter’s is like an onion – you see the outside of it and you think “well that’s not a very big place”. You step through the door and you being to sort of peel back the layers of history – there’s so much history here.
Jonathan Wallis – Cultural Heritage Curator, National Trust North Yorkshire / Chairman, W. W. Winter Heritage Trust
