Howard Grey is an advertising photographer living and working in Central London. This website showcases his extensive archive, which spans over fifty years of commercial and personal photography.
email: contact@howardgrey.com
About Howard
Howard is a fourth generation photographer, learning the trade from his father, Alf Grey, a seaside holiday photographer. Alf’s collection too is currently being archived by Sheffield University.
Following art school, Howard set up a studio in Knightsbridge and started work as one of the first few commercial photographers working in London in the early 1960s. His expertise in optics, photochemistry and perspective took him around the world with brands such as Japan Airlines, Hitachi, Nat West and BT.
In the eighties, Howard started creating library photography for Getty Images and swiftly became one of their most successful stock image photographers internationally.
Howard ripped out his darkroom in 1990 and switched to digital, leaving behind agonizing nights spent waiting to see if he “got the shot”. With the advent of digital came a whole new generation of photographers and a new style with them. Having worked non-stop for thirty years, Howard began focusing more on personal work and enjoying all he had achieved. He still lives in Knightsbridge, but leaves the fast life to his daughter who now also works in the media industry.
About this site
Graphic designer and archivist, Luke Thompson worked with Howard to digitise over 10,000 negatives previously held in storage. As well as scanning and archiving each photograph, Luke found that with each stack of negatives came a different memory, another story. The Process section, therefore, aggregates a lifetime of Howard’s experiences combined with Luke’s fresh viewpoint on the collection.
A comprehensive tagging system allows users to navigate the archive according to date, style and subject making Howard’s collection one of the most dynamic and extensive repositories of 20th century British photography available today.
Usage
Use of images presented on this site is fully encouraged, provided Howard Grey is credited as photographer.
If you are interested in purchasing prints from the collection, please email: contact@howardgrey.com.
Credits:
Lead Archivist and Graphic Design: Luke Thompson
Website Development: Michael Patrick
Archive Assistant: Clara Cowan, Hyoyoon Seok
All images copyright © 1958-2011 Howard Grey. All rights reserved.