Photo agency feature
↑ Tweet of the Week features early this week with a Tweet by the owner/photographer Keith Meatheringham at Yorkshire based photo agency Dobson Agency. Keith dropped PAN a line last week to tell us the agency is celebrating 50 years in business this month – and we spotted him online yesterday having a shave for Movember
According to they’re own records the company was created around Nov / Dec 1964 by the late Scarborough photographer Dennis Dobson- top right – (hence the name), which they have kept to this day.
They say: Fifty years on it’s now run by Director and Photographer Keith Meatheringham. Keith was born in Plymouth, but grew up in Cirencester, Gloucestershire he moved to Scarborough over 20 years ago now, and admitted ‘I guess I’m almost half Yorkshire now – Although I know a lot would disagree’.
Keith has always had a passion for photography from a young age and is really excited at the prospect of opening up the companies 50 year image library to others in the Scarborough and surrounding area via an online, yet to be created, web site where images & jobs will be able to be searched, with a scan and printing service being made available for anyone who wants to buy prints of interesting jobs, scenes or even themselves or they’re loves ones from days gone by.
‘I came to work for the Agency back in 1994 and took it over around 10 years ago now’ said Keith.
The business has had to diversify slightly over the years, but our main source of income is providing creative photography for our many PR companies (Public Relations) and magazines all over the UK, as well as providing images for regional and national newspapers and other corporate and commercial clients too.”
Not only is Keith an active photographer himself covering Yorkshire and the North of England, but the business also has a network of over 100 photographers throughout the UK. Keith has had photos published in most of the National newspapers in mainland UK, as well as having images published in newspapers all over the world including the USA, Canada, Australia and Thailand and many more.
‘Editorial photography is the main part of the business and we must have covered over 16,000 jobs over the last 50 years with a photographic library containing over half a million images at least’. ‘Most is yet to be digitized, but we are making plans to start scanning in our archive of negatives dating back to the early 1960’s soon’.
↑ Miss World Ann Sidney 1964
Keith announced ‘We are planning on using our social media platforms more to share our nostalgic images with others’. ‘We have already started sharing some of our historic photos from our earliest jobs back in 1964 and our plan is also to share regular ‘Fifty Years Ago This Week’ picture stories via our Twitter, Facebook and Blog etc’. ‘Surprisingly, we have already had two people interested in buying photos that we have only just shared this week – one person who wants to buy a photo we have of his Dad and we have even had a former Miss World contact us interested in photos we have of her too’! ‘This is all in the first week of sharing our archive material’. ‘So it’s all quite exciting’. ‘The jobs and photos we have on file are so interesting and we will have thousands of people’s family members on film’.
A good majority of the photographs they have on file will be news and events in the Yorkshire coast areas including Scarborough, Whitby, Bridlington and surrounding towns and villages. However, they also have hundreds of photos of famous celebrities, politicians and performers as well as local celebrities, councillors and business people, Yorkshire cricket & Scarborough FC matches, and also thousands more social interest photographs of general views, seaside, village and street scenes and local interest stories involving local people and businesses through the years.
www.dobsonagency.co.uk
Looking forward to more updates Keith …and a shot of you without that moustache!