Early Sunday Morning: Reviewed by Brian Arnold

Book Review Early Sunday Morning Photographs by Peter Mitchell Reviewed by Brian Arnold "Peter Mitchell has photographed in and around the city of Leeds in Northern England for more than 40 years, and has published numerous photobooks of his work. The photographs in Early Sunday Morning were made largely in the early 1970s, and all along the city's streets in the quiet solitude of early morning..."

Early Sunday Morning. By Peter Mitchell.

Early Sunday Morning
Photographs by Peter Mitchell

Peter Mitchell has photographed in and around the city of Leeds in Northern England for more than 40 years, and has published numerous photobooks of his work. The pictures in Early Sunday Morning were made largely in the early 1970s, and all photographed along the city streets in the quiet solitude of early morning.

In his photography, Mitchell focuses on the mundane and forgotten. The photographs in Early Sunday Morning are all architectural studies of the most ordinary kind. The result is an incredible vernacular expression of life in working-class England. Throughout the book, Mitchell maintains a cool distance from the buildings he photographs, reflecting a sharp understanding of how clearly such simple structures can communicate the identities of their communities. Pictured here are local retail stores, abandoned buildings, comely tenements, and campy yet endearing churches. Most of the buildings have large signs, boldly stating their business and presence. Rarely do we see people in these photographs. When we do they are a small part of the image, secondary to the architecture. Mitchell’s pictures offer a clear narrative about life in the working-class city of Leeds in the 1970s, each building a sliver of the cultural identity of time and place photographed.

Early Sunday Morning. By Peter Mitchell.

With 50 years passed since the making of the photographs, they are characterized by a color palette quite different than what we typically see today. Without the coatings we have on contemporary camera lenses, the colors are very rich but soft, lacking sharp distinctions — a refreshing change from the ubiquitous vivid and eye-catching look of today. The photographs embody a unique kind of light, found in the early morning, yet also muted from the overcast skies typical of the north country.

Most of the photographs in Early Sunday Morning have never been printed before this publication. This kind of patience is indicative of Mitchell’s pictures, as nothing about them feels rushed. They maintain a very static sense of time and place, manifesting as some sort of nostalgia. Nothing sentimental, mind you, because the life documented in Mitchell’s photographs couldn’t have been easy, as all of it seems to exist on the margins of much more lucrative and powerful communities. Nevertheless, the simple and clear method Mitchell employs in making these pictures lend them humility and grace, made whole by rigorous attention to detail throughout the photographic process.

For many of us, this quiet introspection on the subtleties of everyday life is at the heart of our photographic pursuits, an attempt to slow the world down enough to learn more about ourselves and our place within it. This is precisely what makes Early Sunday Morning so compelling, as the pictures are infused with quietude and stillness, and animated with rich light and colors. Pictures full of a love and understanding that can only come from such a deep and familiar engagement with the subject matter, 40 years focusing on the communities in and around Leeds.

Purchase Book

Read More Book Reviews

Early Sunday Morning. By Peter Mitchell.

Early Sunday Morning. By Peter Mitchell.

Brian Arnold is a photographer and writer based in Ithaca, NY, where he works as an Indonesian language translator for the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University. He has published two books on photography, Alternate Processes in Photography: Technique, History, and Creative Potential (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Identity Crisis: Reflections on Public and Private and Life in Contemporary Javanese Photography (Afterhours Books/Johnson Museum of Art, 2017). Brian has two more books due for release in 2021, A History of Photography in Indonesia: Essays on Photography from the Colonial Era to the Digital Age (Afterhours Books) and From Out of Darkness (Catfish Books).