49
IMAGES OF THE PAST 135 YEARS
Michael Topham,
Reviews Editor
‘West Yorkshire Regiment
at Edge Hill Cuttings,
Liverpool’, by Eric Treacy
It’s hard to single out a
photograph from the
many thousands of my
favourites, but there is
one I find myself
admiring time and time again, which
is ‘West Yorkshire Regiment at Edge
Hill Cuttings, Liverpool’ taken by Eric
Treacy. The image features in my
favourite photography book, The Best
of Eric Treacy (see page 73) and
depicts an unrebuilt Royal Scot
locomotive leaving Liverpool for
Euston with the 11.15am up express
in 1938. Edge Hill cutting, with its tall
walls, short tunnels and restrictive
clearance, was one of Treacy’s
favourite locations but also one of
the most challenging ones. There
were only a few days each year when
the sun was high enough in the sky
that it was bright enough to
penetrate into the gloomy depths.
For this shot, steam, sun and location
all came together at the right time. I
love the way Treacy has captured the
lingering smoke in the distant tunnels
and caught the attention of the
fireman leaning from the cab. It’s an
image that portrays the power of
steam superbly and is a true credit to
Treacy’s masterful planning and
perseverance to getting the shot that
he envisaged.
Amy Davies,
Co–Features Editor
‘Margaret Bourke-White
at the top of the
Chrysler Building’, 1935,
by Oscar GraubnerMargaret Bourke-White
was a role model for ‘girl
power’ decades before the
phrase was coined. Her
career would have been
remarkable even if she had been a
man, but it was even more so given the
era in which she lived. Part of the
original LIFE magazine team, her
picture of Fort Peck Dam was the cover
of the very first issue. She was the first
Western photographer to shoot in the
Soviet Union, and the first female war
correspondent to work in combat zonesduring the Second World War, where
her many brushes with death (including
surviving a torpedoed troop ship and a
helicopter crash) earned her the
nickname ‘Maggie the Indestructible’
among her LIFE colleagues. She was
the first photographer to reach
Buchenwald concentration camp and
the last to photograph Gandhi before
his assassination. Why there haven’t
been more movies made about her life,
I don’t know.
There are so many great images by
Margaret Bourke-White to choose
from – she took several of the most
iconic images of the 20th century. This
one is of her, not by her, but it really
encapsulates her fearlessness and
sense of adventure. It also features one
of my favourite buildings, in one of my
favourite cities.‘She took some of the most iconic images and this
portrait of her encapsulates her fearlessness’
PHOTO BY OSCAR GRAUBNER © THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION VIA GETT Y IMAGES