I have managed to pick up a second hand copy of Bob Carlos Clarke's The Dark Summer. It seems to becoming pretty hard to get hold of. I can't believe that it is 20 years since I went to his exhibition at the Royal Photographic Society in Bath. I always regretted not buying the book at the time and it seems really weird to buy it 20 years later!The images are stunning and looking back on these images you can see how far this genre of photography has come in the last twenty years - much of it due to the BCC influences.
The images are deep and dark with definite Goth style overtones. What makes this book even more remarkable is that many of the images are either hand coloured or the result of multiple negative printing. Today, such images would be easily replicated using digital techniques and this book underlines BCC's skill as a traditional printer although he will be remembered for his skills as a photographer foremost.
