When it comes to talking pictures, international artist Julian Germain is proudest to talk about an unlikely eight-year project featuring an elderly friend called Charlie.

Viv Hardwick talks to the artist who put Consett on the photographic map about his exhibition which opened at the Baltic this week.

FOR every minute you are angry you lose 60 seconds of happiness... runs the title of Julian Germain's recently-opened photographic exhibition at Gateshead's Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. The ground floor area display, which opened on Saturday, is a poignant and very personal reminder of Northumberland-based Germain's friendship with an elderly widower called Charlie Snelling, who he met while working on a book in Portsmouth.

He explains: "The name of the exhibition came from something pinned to the wall in his house, well I mean I never really took a nice picture of it but it was something I liked the moment I saw and seemed to resonate with what was going on."

Isn't the idea of constant happiness a forlorn hope in this day and age?

"You have to understand that Charlie was a retired gentleman whose wife had died and his children had left home 20 years before. At his time of life he didn't really have responsibilities any more. When you think about it the vast amount of things that piss us off probably don't matter very much. What I found with Charlie was that he got a lot of pleasure from simple things like flowers, growing things and listening to music. He wasn't in the same kind of rat race that most of us are.

"The exhibition was a huge pleasure because it's a piece of work that's been going on for years and years. I met Charlie in 1992 and photographed him until he died. Every few months I'd go to Portsmouth and take pictures but I never really had any plans for this work. Charlie died quite suddenly in 2000 at the age of 85, but then I got hold of his photo albums. He was a modest chap who didn't overdo anything and took his time, although he died two weeks after his son had died of a heart attack so I think the shock of his son dying might have had an affect."

Sadly, Germain didn't learn of Charlie's death until his daughter Marilyn came across the photographer's phone number when she was going through his effects several weeks after the funeral.

"The really nice thing about Charlie is that he used to introduce me to people as his friend rather than a photographer who was working on a project."

Germain has no qualms about sharing the exhibition space with some of Charlie's own family snaps. He says: "One of the beautiful things about photography is that it's a very generous medium and I love family pictures and one of the amazing things is that a snapshot that appears to have no art in it can still be a very emotional piece telling lots of stories. This can be relevant to a wider audience than just the family."

The Londoner made his name with a book called Steel Works about Consett in 1990 and that book includes family photographs of people he met. Germain jokes of the culture shock of first meeting the North-East accent in the ailing coal and steel industry area: "Once you've been to Wigan you can understand anything."

This book also had pictures by local newspaper photographer Tommy Harris and text from journalist Hunter Davies including the quote "along the lines of 'if you think this place is rough you should go the Hartlepool because they eat children there'," he jokes.

"I was at college in Nottingham and a friend of mine was from Consett and he said you need to go there because I've always been interested in social issues and the fact that the steel works had closed in 1980. It was like a microcosm of what was happening in post-industrial Britain under Margaret Thatcher.

"One thing I've felt about this area is the exciting and spectacular landscape. If you look around Middlesbrough and Teesside it's industrially spectacular, then at Consett you've got this beautiful mixture of countryside and a feeling of living in a frontier town. It's always fascinating," says Germain who spent five years photographing the area.

Eventually he moved up to Rookhope, Co Durham, in 1993, and now lives in Allenheads with his family, wife Gill, and daughters Rhiannon and Clementine.

He confesses that he and family love the area's icy blast winters even if it means abandoning their landrover at the end of the track near their snowed-in home.

"That's not quite so good when you're trying to commute between Northumberland and Gateshead to set up an exhibition," he says. Of his career as a photographer he adds: "It's not like having a regular job with regular money but on the other hand what I do is richly rewarding. Although photography art book don't sell that well, I've got some pictures in collections and museums and that tends to be the people who buy them."

Other books include In Soccer Wonderland when he recalls following the FA Cup rounds and going to Roker Park and taking a wonderful picture of a female fan called Vera Hutchinson with her entire garden decked out in red and white stripes.

A recent project was The Face Of The Century with each page containing an image of someone born between 1899 and 2000. Now Germain, who is currently Fellow in Photography at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, is looking to re-create this idea with baby pictures in the autumn.

Anyone who can supply a baby picture, particularly of themselves or a family member born in the period 1899-1950, can send a copy: Julian Germain c/o Penny Skerret, National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD1 1NQ or email: julian@germain.co.uk

And then, when we discuss arranging a photograph to go with the article, the international photographer admits: "I hate having my picture taken."

* Julian Germain's exhibition runs at the Baltic until June 5. A book published by Steidl Mack to accompany the project is on sale at the centre for the special price of £17.99.

* Germain will give a free talk on April 21 in the Level One Cinema at 6.30pm. To book phone: 0191-478 1810

Published: 10/03/2005