Peter Reid ARPS

Peter Reid ARPS MA BSc(Hons) PGCE

Peter Reid is the elder son of Arthur and Sadie (née Simpson) Reid, born 30th December 1946 at Ferryhill, Co Durham. His secondary education was at the Johnston Grammar Technical School at Durham. An engineering craft apprenticeship, instead of the more usual academic route between the ages of sixteen and twenty one, followed with part-time attendance at Durham Technical College allowing him to gain a variety of engineering qualifications.

After two years as an Engineering Technician at Constantine College of Technology and then Assistant Works Engineer at Tollemache and Cobbold Breweries until the age of twenty five, he then became an Insurance salesman and between 1977 and 1988 operated a small business of insurance brokers. In 1989, with an urge "to give a little back", he enrolled as a mature student to undertake a first degree, B.Sc.(Hons) at University of Sunderland, which he completed in 1992 before moving to the University of Durham to study a PGCE.

Armed with this qualification he became a teacher of Mathematics and Computer Science and spent the next eight years teaching both subjects. His teaching career was brought to an untimely halt due to ill-health in December 2002, having risen to the position of Head of ICT and ICT Coordinator at a secondary school in the South of England.

Peter Reid is now semi-retired and lives in the North East of England, from where he combines a lifelong interest in photography with his love of travel and European culture. During 2007 he spent nine weeks, in three visits, in France, visiting Vannes for the Festival International de la Photo de Mer in the spring, Aubusson for the Tapestry festival in the summer and Paris for the student riots in the autumn, shooting more than two thousand images.

His early research centred on the forgotten landscape and the lives of the people who built our early transportation systems. His practice utilises medium format and 35mm digital photography, digital video, historical text and images in an effort to provide an insight into a bygone age. His work on disused railways looked at the remaining trace elements of the branch lines that were discarded during the 1960’s, specifically the line between Bishop Auckland and Wearhead, under the stewardship of Dr Richard Beeching.

Reid’s past work also looked at the transport system that was killed off with the advent of the railway system in England and in so doing highlighted a variety of sophisticated skills that were largely taken for granted in the day to day life of the typical navigator. He, of that itinerant army of rumbustious workers to whom a great debt is owed. His latest work, “Stairway to Heaven”, was exhibited at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, from 7th December 2007 until 26th January 2008. His image 'Nantes/Brest Canal' was selected for the 2009 Members' Exhibition at 'The Royal Photographic Society.'

Currently he is researching on two fronts, Human Rights and the Photographer and European Gothic Architecture with a view to publication as well as hosting four galleries, Follies and Grottos, French Architecture, Naval Architecture and Strictly Gothic, at Redbubble. He is also represented at Saatchi On-Line and several other on-line galleries. His own website is Foto Dreams. He does not usually undertake commissions.