“I had no brief, no agenda at all. They just let me loose. I was free to encounter life. There was a certain sense of grayness everywhere. That’s why these pictures are delicate and I was delicate too”
~ Bruce Davidson
In 1960 The Queen Magazine sent the American photographer Bruce Davidson to England to create a body of work that he thought the magazine and its readers would favorably respond to.
An unbelievable gift. He brought his keen sense of storytelling to exploring new terrain and created a wonderful body of work which was published on 12th April 1961 under the title “Seeing Ourselves as an American sees us”. This is my favourite image form the series. He captured the eccentricity of the English and their adherence to tradition and class before the new Swinging 60’s kind of changed all that .. These elderly nannies with their charges were the Mary Poppins of their day with their glorious old fashioned prams strolling through the posh Hyde Park. I wonder what sort of life the children inside the prams had. Maybe they went to Eton and became distinguished members of Parliament or famous actors? We and Bruce will never know.
