Barry Lewis, dancing with Napoleon ...
- Chris Hilton
- Sep 22, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 18, 2025
I once heard Stephen Fry recount a tale about shaking hands with Alistair Cooke (of Letter From America fame), Alistair announced that he had once shaken hands with Betrand Russell, whose aunt had danced with Napoleon. "That's how close we all are to history" he proclaimed, "Just a few handshakes away. Never forget that."
And so it was when I shook hands with Barry Lewis at Bridport Camera Club. He'd shaken hands with the legendary Bill Brandt who had taught Barry photography for two years in an intimate class of just six. Bill Brandt himself had studied in the Paris studio of Man Ray, the Dada photographer who shook hands with the likes of Pablo Picasso and Salvidor Dali as he welcomed them to his lair. It was Dali who said "At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven, I wanted to be Napoleon." and whilst he never morphed into Napoleon he did create a painting ... Napoleon's Nose, Transformed into a Pregnant Woman, Strolling His Shadow with Melancholia amongst Original Ruins.
Thats the way it is at Bridport Camera Club ... you just never know how close you are to dancing with Napoleon ... or doing something much weirder with his nose!
You can see that Surreal, Dadaist influence when you look at what Barry Lewis calls his
'Visual Noise' photographs ... particularly when he drifts into alien landing sites and portals to another world.
(note the text on the board under the bridge ... A Flying Saucer Will Deliver an Important Message).
We heard tales of Fear and Loathing in Mardi Gras, charging through the streets in pursuit of a horse whilst dressed as a devil with a hundred and sixty rolls of dreamlike negatives waiting to be discovered in the cool and sobre light of the morning.
Those images stand in contrast to the emotive, socially committed work that we saw from places like Romainia, Siberia and Skegness. It was typical of the sort of work being created at the Network Photographers, of which he was a founding member.
It was a great meeting at the club but probably the image that will, forever, be etched into my mind is the one of a man jumping backwards into five feet of water, next to the tattered diving board in a Butlins swimming pool beneath a quote from A Midsummer's Night Dream ...
To end with another Shakespeare quote ... "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn" ... I think that Barry's yarn has been more mingled than most but I'm glad it led him to our little club for an evening.
We will be touching on some of the themes of Barry's work when we meet for our 'Colour' evening ...
Our next meeting will see us rediscovering the 'art' in nature photography with Rob Read ...
