Preview Perfect Moment

Leeds Museum hosts 'A Lasting Moment' - a collection of historic Leeds photographs

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Preview: Perfect Moment

Imagine Leeds in the 1950s. Do you see cobbled streets? Horse-drawn carts? Do you think life only happened in black and white? If your imagination fails you, don’t miss the upcoming exhibition, ‘A Lasting Moment’.

It’s a time-capsule - a collection of beautiful, forgotten, stark shots of Leeds after the war - showing a city and the people who lived here then.

The photographs, taken by the sharp eye of now internationally-acclaimed photographer, Marc Riboud, can be seen for the first time, as a world premiere, from January at the new Leeds City Museum.

Alongside the faded 50 year-old images are a display of winning contemporary photographs taken by members of the public, showing their interpretation of life in Leeds today. The modern pictures fall in to four categories: Politics/Communities, The Working City, City Life and Old Lives/New Futures.

Marc Riboud, who is now in his 80s and lives in Paris, first took the Leeds images in 1954 for Picture Post, who featured only six of the hundred images he took. The rest lay forgotten in a London darkroom. They were found a few years ago and are enjoying a new leash of life in this exhibition.

In the half-century since Riboud took the shots of Leeds, he has built a reputation as a world-famous photographer telling the stories of the lives of ordinary people, particularly in the Far East and China. He has also photographed famous and historical figures such as Churchill and Chairman Mao. ‘A Lasting Moment’, Leeds City Museum, until 31 March

Posted on Wednesday 7th January 2009
Sophie Haydock

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