Howell and Rosemary Evans - Photographers

Portrait and interview - 1994

Howell began his photographic career at the early age of sixteen, by joining the RAF and entering the photographic section.  On being invalided out in 1941, he went to work for Bassano, a London society photographer and from there, moved to Felix Fonteyne’s where he met Rosemary Matthews.  She had studied photography at Guildford School of Art under Ifor Thomas, and like Howell, was drawn towards press photography.

After working for the Benson International Press Agency for a time, Rosemary moved to the Keystone Press where she was a freelance feature photographer.  She later joined Howell, by then her husband, who had set up as a freelance photographer in London.  Their work at this time was predominantly general feature and research articles.  Howell was sent by the Air Ministry on assignments to Aden and Cyprus to document the Armed Services, much of his work being submitted to the Central Office of Information, subsequently to appear in the Illustrated London News and the Guardian.  Weekly articles and photographic illustrations were commissioned by ‘Girl’, ‘Robin’ and ‘The Eagle’.

Rosemary was in the meantime pursuing her own freelance work and in 1961 was the runner up in the sequence section of The Press Photographer of the Year, the first prize going to Don McCullin of The Observer.  For her subject, she had chosen to show how children use the streets as a playground.  Her submission of two dozen photographs had proven to be a lesson to both photographers and social workers alike.  A critic, writing for the British Journal of Photography (BJP), commented that Rosemary’s success had been no mere flash-in-the-pan as she had won the second award in that category just the year before.

On Sunday evenings during the 60s, Howell and Rosemary photographed pop groups at The London Palladium – The Swinging Blue Jeans, Adam Faith, Cliff Richard, Anthony Newley, Bobby Darin and The Bachelors, to name but a few from that famous era.  One day, Howell received a ‘phone call from a contact in Liverpool who recommended that he come up to the city to photograph a new band which was playing in a place called The Cavern Club.  He received a few follow-up calls with the same request, and to this day, Howell and his wife regret that they never got around to make the trip.  Yes, the group was The Beatles!

Howell and Rosemary have worked individually in many countries, and on numerous assignments have worked as a team.  Their illustrated feature articles regularly appeared nationally and internationally and were covered by Life Magazine, the Illustrated London News and the Guardian etc.  It was usual for one to take black and white, the other colour but Howell is quick to point out that being freelance was not simply a case of taking photographs.  ‘There was the story to find, usually by wading through piles of newspapers and magazines and then there was the arranging, the taking, the developing, contact-printing, selecting and enlarging, the caption, the story-writing and finally the selling and that was the least enjoyable part of all!’

In the 70s, Howell had a small studio in Fore Street, Totnes but this was sold when he accepted the offer to become Head of the photographic department for Sotheby’s, Belgravia and later their Bond Street salerooms.  During his time with them, he got to print up a number of Cecil Beaton’s negatives which proved to be both difficult and tiresome due to varying levels of exposure control in camera, and leads visible from the tungsten studio lights trailing across the floor of images

In recent times, Rosemary is as involved as ever with her work, submitting the results of her frequent travels abroad to her London agent.  She now veers away from touristy shots and concentrates more on the use of light and textures in relation to old buildings.

Update:  Howell died in March 1999.