A PHOTOGRAPHER had his thought-provoking art entered into the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2020, after gathering photos depicting the former homes of fallen Great War soldiers.

The powerful pinhole photos show old addresses of Bury soldiers who fell in the First World War between 1914 and 1915.

The photos show the locations as they are now, whether they are vacant lots, pubs or stores.

Paul Cliff’s project began in Bury Museum and Archive as part of his MA studies.

Susan Lord showed Paul a Bury Times memorial booklet which contained details of 591 Bury men and boys killed in 1914/15, which became the seed of a project.

Paul said: “I transcribed all the details for the Bury Times booklet into a spreadsheet then set about filling in as many details further as I could for as many different sources as I could.

“I found almost 500 exact addresses and added details like age, trade, who they left behind, where they were killed - anything really.

“I began to plot locations on a map from 1911. The dots themselves are a sight to behold - I thought they might look like a star constellation but they actually look like a map of Bury such is the proliferation. “

The images were made using a pinhole camera - with the photographs taking 20 minutes to expose onto paper negative.

The slow process saw Paul produce no more than three or four photographs in any one day.

‘Cornelius Bamford’ was selected by the Royal Academy for its summer exhibition, which runs now until January due to the pandemic. Cornelius, a swimming coach, was 22 and recently married with a baby, when he was killed in Belgium in December 1914. He lived in Parsons Court, Elton.

This is the second time Paul has been selected for the RA, having previously got in in 2016 with a photograph for a series on train journeys.

For more on Paul's work go online to www.paulcliff.co.uk