A new national campaign from the Royal British Legion uses photography to reinforce the importance of remembering those who served in past conflicts, and those who still benefit from the RBL’s support today.
Brigitte Lardinois, Senior Research Fellow at LCC, has been working on the project. She started researching the Edward Reeves archive in 2012, and was the first researcher to gain access to this unique collection of over 150,000 glass plates. She is working closely with the owners of the Edward Reeves studio to bring this archive to light and map its holdings.
An exhibition of light boxes that Brigitte curated with the Edward Reeves Archive in Lewes High Street last that Brigitte curated with the Archive last year caught the attention of RKCR / Y&R agency, who approached the Archive to collaborate on this project.
Reeves Archive, 2015 (left), 1915 (right).
In this new campaign photographs of current Legion beneficiaries are positioned besides their First World War counterparts. The campaign aims to raise awareness, reminding the viewer that the huge sacrifices that were made by military personnel throughout history are still being made today.
The beautiful portraits were taken by Tom Reeves, the grandson of original image’s photographer Benjamin Reeves. Tom took the photographs in the same studio in Lewes with the same camera, which over a hundred years ago, the original images were captured with.
Reeves Archive, 2015.
Brigitte explains “this project with the Royal British Legion is a prime example of how this unique archive is really relevant today. As part of a national campaign for the Royal British Legion I was able to place an exhibition of the work by Tom Reeves and his grandfather in the National Media Museum.
“LCC and PARC have been very supportive of this research project. This kind of project really is a very good example of the outreach of the research we do at the College.”
Reeves Archive, 2015 (left), 1915 (right).
Reeves Archive, 2015.