Horses - Dartmoor Ponies 1970s John Hinde postcard

Postcard

 

• Picture / Image:  Dartmoor ponies - Devon
• Publisher:  John Hinde (photo E. Nagele) No. 2DC348 (John Hinde cards have become more collectable of late due to the recognition of photographers such as Martin Parr)
• Postally used:  yes
• Stamp:  3x2p green Machins + 2x ½p turquoise Machins
• Postmark(s):  Bideford 29 May 1977
• Sent to:  Penshurst, Kent
• Notes & Key words:  One mild corner creases and bump or two

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Postage & Packing:

UK (incl. IOM, CI & BFPO): 99p

Europe: £1.60

Rest of world (inc. USA etc): £2.75

No additional charges for more than one postcard. You can buy as many postcards from me as you like and you will just pay the fee above once. (If buying postcards with other things such as books, please contact or wait for invoice before paying).

Payment Methods:

UK - PayPal, Cheque (from UK bank) or postal order

Outside UK: PayPal or Google Checkout ONLY please.   NO non-UK currency checks or money orders (sorry).

NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information:

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The Dartmoor Pony has lived in south-western England for centuries and is used for a variety of disciplines. Because of the extreme weather conditions experienced on the moors, the Dartmoor is a particularly hardy breed with excellent stamina. Over the centuries it has been used as a working animal by local tin miners and quarry workers. It is kept in a semi-feral state on Dartmoor, Devon. It is closely related to the Exmoor Pony, from Exmoor (also partly in Devon).

Despite this, numbers have declined - from an estimated 25,800 in the 1930s to perhaps 5,000 today.

John Wilfrid Hinde (1916-1998) was an English photographer whose idealistic and nostalgic style influenced the art of postcard photography and was widely known for his meticulously planned shoots.

Born in Somerset, England, his interest in colour photography arose during the 1940s. From the later half of the 1940s to the middle half of the 1950s, he entered the circus life, where he met his future wife. However, he soon returned to photography and, in 1956, he left the circus and founded John Hinde Ltd. in Dublin to produce and distribute his colour pictures of Ireland. Hinde's most famous work is that of the Butlin's Holiday Camps, in which he portrayed a welcoming and jubilant environment. In 1972, he sold his company in order to pursue his love of painting. The Irish Museum of Modern Art recognized his work with a retrospective in Dublin in 1993. In 1998, Hinde died in Dordogne, France. At the time of his death, millions of his postcards had been sold worldwide.

In 1916, Hinde was born in the town of Street in Somerset, England, in a close-knit Quaker community. He stuck to his Quaker values during the war by becoming a photographer for the civil defence forces instead of a soldier. Some of his photography was published in colour magazines and books, such as Of Cabbages and Kings, Citizens of War, and British Circus Life. His interest in photography would lead him to become an important pioneer in colour photographs.

Hinde briefly switched professions when he became a circus publicity manager in 1944. Here, he met his wife Antoina Falnoga, a trapeze artist who was part of the circus. In 1954, he and Antoina started their own traveling circus company in Ireland named “The John Hinde Show.” This venture quickly failed however and Hinde quit the circus business in 1956. He returned to his life as a photographer, and that same year, he founded John Hinde Ltd in Dublin.

While travelling with the circus for twelve years, and in the years after, he began to take colour photographs of the Irish countryside. During this time, Ireland was becoming a popular destination for tourists. Black and white postcards were favoured because it was felt that this method could better capture the romantic landscape of Ireland. Hinde, a colour photographer, tried to find a way in which he could achieve the same or better effect with the addition of colour, something that would set his pictures apart from all the others. He hoped to capture the vividness of the Irish countryside, as well as the imagination of his audience. With much thought, he came up with a method that blended Irish stereotypes (donkeys, red-headed children, etc) and the lush, seemingly endless, landscape with bright colours.

Hinde would sometimes enhance colours in his studio to get a desired effect. He was well known for setting up, or changing a scene so that it would fit his strict style. If he found something unpleasant or out of place in his pictures, he could simply cover it up or move it to get the best shot. So common was this practice that he kept a saw in the back of his car so that, if there happened to be an unsightly object in the view of his camera, he would chop down a nearby rhododendron bush and use it to conceal the eyesore. Needless to say, many rhododendron bushes appear in Hinde's Ireland postcards. This series of photographs was a huge success, not only with tourists, but also with the Irish people who enjoyed being reminded of the vibrant environment in which they lived.

From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, Hinde worked on his most widely known production: the Butlin Holiday Camps postcards. Billy Butlin had founded the camps as a place for working class people to go for vacation, complete with high excitement and low cost. Butlin hired Hinde to produce postcards that reflected the spirited and enjoyable environment found at his camps. By this time, Hinde worked more as an art director than an actual photographer, so he hired two German photographers, Elmar Ludwig and Edmund Nägele, and one British photographer, David Noble. They travelled to the different camps and set up the necessary lights and photography equipment, often taking a whole day to make them just right.

Hinde's pictures portrayed holiday makers taking advantage of all of the things Butlin's had to offer, having a grand old time in the process. The photographers used large format cameras and Ektachrome film to capture the optimistic tone that Butlin was looking for. Scenes from the postcards included people eating in lavishly decorated dining halls, large indoor swimming pools, themed bars, and amusement park rides. Actual holiday makers were used in the shots, but like the Ireland pictures, the sets were often added to in order to capture the energetic feeling of the setting. Hinde would often enhance certain colours later on so that the end result would be a lively, idealistic view of a Butlin vacation. The combination of the images of a fun-filled family vacation and the vivacious colour produced a nostalgic portrait for the masses.

Hinde's postcards were immensely popular, despite Hinde's view that the photographs held no artistic value. In 1972, he decided to sell his company to the Waterford Glass Group in order to pursue his love of landscape painting.

Even though Hinde never viewed his photographs with much reverence, the Irish Museum of Modern Art recognized his photographic works with a retrospective in Dublin in 1993. Since his death in 1998, exhibits of his photography have travelled all over the world and he proved to be the most successful postcard producer in the world. His works have also been compiled into books, including Hindesight, a collection of the Ireland postcards and Our Intent Is All For Your Delight, a collection of the Butlin's postcards.

Some of his postcards form the basis for an Irish 30 minute television programme called Cartai Phoist which picks 3 postcards per episode, and using a contemporary Irish artist/celebrity/tv personality, recreates the postcard by finding the original people (or their next-of-kin) and posing at the exact spot where the original postcard shot was taken. So far 18 episodes have been made, with more in the pipeline. These can be viewed on www.tg4.ie.