Bob Cramp - A Personal Reflection

Contributed by Basil Helman.

 

It is with great sadness that I learned of the death of Bob Cramp - photographer, film-maker, hotelier and restauranteur.

Above: Bob Cramp (left), seen here with our co-founder John Rock in 2018 at a Luccombe meeting.

In his youth Bob studied photography at Art College before becoming an assistant with a number of famous London photographers. Bob knew the greats of the 60s - Bailey, Donovan and Duffy - and on a number of occasions was engaged in photographing them after they returned to his employer’s studio after a long liquid lunch. Bob had some insightful comments on their personal qualities!

 

After setting up his own studio, Bob became known for his commercial photography, in particular advertising. Whilst Bob was famous for his food photography, his most iconic image was the Saatchi and Saatchi promotion for the Conservatives in 1978, Labour Isn't Working. This image ended up in the V & A such was its fame. Apparently Bob could only set up his equipment late in the day and his problems were compounded by insufficient extras turning up to complete the crocodile. Consequently, he laid out a rope to give the sinuous appearance and took a number of shots with the extras standing against different sections of the rope and then left it to his printer to combine the shots into a single poster.

Later in his career Bob specialised in TV film commercials, before he and his wife decided on a dramatic change of careers and left London for the West Country to run a hotel in Brendon. Subsequently they moved from the hotel to Malmsmead and ran the restaurant and campsite there for a number of years. On his wife’s death Bob moved to Watchet in retirement, at which point he joined both the u3a Photography Group and the ,Monochrome Photography Group that John Rock and I were running. Bob acted as convener for the u3a Photography Group for a number of years.

 

Bob was a noted raconteur and delighted both Groups with stories from his career. He was also generous with his expertise. In particular I shall always recall the insights he gave us into desktop photography, the skills that he would have used to great effect in his commercial images. His humour and perceptions will be sorely missed.

 

My sincere condolences to his family and friends.

 

 

Basil Helman