We thought we'd give you that warm, fuzzy vintage feeling before Vintage at Southbank opens - Click here with a few pictures from The John Hinde Collection. These hyper-real, never seen before limited-edition photographs by John Hinde and his photographers will be exhibited at Vintage at Southbank at the end of July.

John Hinde, a photographer, innovator and entrepreneur, was a key figure in the development of the colour photograph as a postcard. Each photograph is innovative in its use of colour and stage-management. Shot with large format cameras, the production of these photographs was an extraordinary undertaking. Sometimes photographs could take a day and a half to get right. These images now provide a valuable document of the leisure boom in post war Britain. The photographs are instantly recognizable as the postcard images we grew up with in the 1960’s and 1970’s when John Hinde Ltd was the World’s pre-eminent picture postcard company. The photographs were taken as a constructed snapshot of a country at leisure - to be written on, sent and probably thrown away. Fifty or sixty years later these images stand out in their own right, not only as Technicolor reminders of a by-gone era, but exquisite examples of photography of their time. They show consummate skill by pioneers of colour photography and help reposition John Hinde in the history of photography.

The postcards are also known for the extraordinarily, innovative post production techniques which were used to create these images in heightened Technicolor. In most cases these edition prints are the unadulterated photographs, showing the image in all its true reality before certain edits, additions and    exaggerations. Seeing these photographs at 30"x 24" reveals some of the extraordinary detail that is lost in the comparatively tiny postcards, for which the extensive planning was meant.

All pictures copyright of John Hinde Ltd/John Hinde Collection.

www.johnhindecollection.com