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[ABOVE] A strip of
photobooth photos showing my brother John Simkin with his wife-to-be
Judith 'Julie' Harris (c1965). John Simkin married Judith Harris in
Romford, Essex, in 1966.
[ABOVE] My sister, then Patricia (Tricia) Simkin, now Mrs Pat Woods,
photo-graphed in East Ham, East London, in September 1960 when she was
18 years of age. Tricia married James (Jim) Woods in Ilford, Essex, in
1963. In 2013, Tricia and Jim celebrated 50 years of marriage. |
[ABOVE] My brother John
Simkin with his wife-to-be Judith 'Julie' Harris (c1965). John Simkin
married 'Julie' Harris in 1966. Judith Simkin died in 2009 after 42
years of marriage.
[ABOVE] Me (David Simkin)
photographed in a photobooth with my son Kieran in 1987. Kieran David
Simkin was born in Brighton, Sussex, on 9th July 1985. The automatic
photographs of father and son were not entirely successful as I had
failed to raise the adjustable seat to a suitable height.
[BELOW] I was more
successful in a photo-booth the following year. Kieran and me both
manage a smile for the automatic camera and this time we are actually
seated at the right level.
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 [ABOVE]
David Simkin (me) in the unconvincing guise of a hardened criminal. This
simulated mugshot photograph was taken in a photobooth in the West
Midlands town of Walsall on 19th October 1974. I was, at the time, a
student teacher in my final year at West Midlands College of Education.
I was in possession of a Teaching Certificate and I was working towards
a Bachelor of Education degree, my main subject being Art & Design. The
'mugshot' photo was to be used in an artwork which explored the theme of
childhood innocence and adult criminality. The proposed artwork was
inspired by two contrasting portraits of John McVicar, one, a photo of
an innocent looking school boy, the other, a photograph taken when the
supposedly hardened criminal was in custody after being arrested for
armed robbery. My stepfather, Bill Simkin, albeit unconsciously,
presented a more believable visage of a career criminal than I did
myself when he posed for his bus pass identity photograph in a Romford
coin-operated photobooth.
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| [ABOVE] My
late step-father William ('Bill') Simkin, photographed for his bus pass
(c1980). Bill Simkin was the younger brother of my real father, John
Edward ('Ted') Simkin. Bill Simkin's first wife, Winnie, died in
1968. Two years later, Bill married my mother. |
[ABOVE] My late mum,
Muriel Simkin, photographed for her bus pass (c1980). Muriel was
widowed in 1956 when her first husband, John Edward ('Ted') Simkin,
was killed in a road accident. She married Ted Simkin's younger
brother, Bill Simkin, in 1970. |
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| [ABOVE]
Changes in hairstyle and eyewear over a period of 35 years, as
recorded in formal photographs taken between 1964, when I was a 15
year old schoolboy, and 1999, when I was photographed for an
identity card. The school photograph is not, strictly speaking, the
product of an automatic camera, but it is just as impersonal as the
photobooth photo. |
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[ABOVE] A strip of
photobooth photos showing me (David Simkin) in my student days (19th
October 1974). The fake mug-shot photos were produced for an artwork on the theme of
innocence and criminality.
[BELOW] A heavily watermarked passport photograph (January 2010). After
a "life sentence" of 36 years, I produced a more convincing mugshot when
I posed for a passport photograph in a Photo-Me booth in the
lobby of a Brighton branch of Sainsburys Supermarket in 2010.
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