“PHOTOGRAPHY has done the Caribbean a great disservice,” says Tim Smith. “If you Google ‘Caribbean Images’ 99per cent of the thousands of photos that pop up are of turquoise seas and white sandy beaches lined with palm trees, designed to encourage tourists to visit what is undoubtedly a beautiful part of the world - but which totally ignore the lives of people who live and work there.”

Visitors to Bradford photographer Tim’s new exhibition won’t see photos like this: “My ambition was to produce an exhibition that moved beyond the popular stereotypes of ‘The Paradise Islands’, showing real people going about their everyday lives.”

Island to Island: Journeys through the Caribbean, at Cartwright Hall in Manningham until May 1, celebrates the light, life and landscapes of the English-speaking Caribbean.

Over the past decade Tim has travelled back to his childhood home of Barbados and other Caribbean countries with close connections to Britain. His pictures are displayed alongside those taken by his father, Derek Smith, of everyday life on various islands during the 1950s and 60s.

Photographs from Antigua, Barbados, Bequia, Carriacou, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent, and Trinidad and Tobago are included. Moving beyond the stereotypes of ʻParadise Islandsʼ, they explore the region’s history and the extraordinary changes there over the past 65 years. Work by local poets Khadijah Ibrahiim and Jane Steele complement the images, alongside colourful Bradford Carnival costumes produced by X-Plosion Cultural Arts. People’s stories are being collected by Grace Flerin to explore links between Bradford and the Caribbean.

Archive photographs of Bradford’s Caribbean families, taken at Manningham’s Belle Vue Studio, are displayed in a recreation of the Front Room, a common feature of British Caribbean homes in the 1960s and 70s. It features items loaned by local people and drawn from Bradford Museums collections, including a radiogram, a drinks trolley, glass cabinets and the iconic glass fish ornament.

The exhibition is a collaboration between Tim, Bradford Museums and Galleries, Windrush Generations and X-Plosion Cultural Arts, with contributions from the Geraldine Connor Foundation and Bradford’s Caribbean communities.

Says Tim: “Having grown up in different parts of the world, including the Caribbean, I suspect a nomadic upbringing is one reason why I’m so interested in using photography, film and audio to explore the lives of Bradford’s cosmopolitan communities and their links with people and places overseas. It is something I’ve done throughout my 35-year career.

“Island to Island began in 2010 when I travelled back, for the first time in 40 years, to my childhood home of Barbados. On that trip I also visited Dominica, the island from which many of my neighbours in Bradford originate. Around two thirds of Bradford’s Caribbean communities trace their roots to this small, beautiful island. Returning made me realise I should have gone back much sooner, and that although I can never claim the Caribbean as home, while I was there I did feel very much at home.”

It was this that made Tim determined to investigate other people’s ideas of ‘home’ by visiting places in the region closely linked to communities in Britain.

“Since 2010 I’ve returned to Barbados and Dominica several times, and also visited Antigua, Carriacou, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent, and Trinidad and Tobago. Photos of all feature in Island to Island.

“Local people were overwhelming friendly and helpful. I met lots of people who had lived in Britain, were back visiting, or had friends and family living over here. I also bumped into a few familiar faces! Virtually everyone was very supportive when I explained what I was doing and hoped to share these stories and the pictures with people back home.”

The exhibition includes a fascinating series of pictures taken by Tim’s father Derek. “They lay unseen in a wardrobe for decades, but I dug them out and recently scanned a selection,” says Tim. “Shot on slide film they show everyday life in Barbados and other islands my father visited whilst working for the British Government’s Overseas Development Administration, taken at a time when many local people were leaving the islands to come to Britain. Although he was an amateur photographer he had a great eye. Alongside my images, they show how life has changed over the past 60 years.”

The exhibition came about after a lockdown project Tim did in collaboration with Windrush Generations in Bradford: “We called it Caribbean Conversations and shared images on Zoom, using them as a spark for exploring experiences of life ‘over here’ and ‘over there’. It was great fun, and provided the catalyst for producing this show.

“As well as celebrating the life and landscapes of the Caribbean the exhibition is inspired by a quote from Jamaican writer Rex Nettleford: ‘The apt description of the typical Caribbean person is that he/she is part African, part-European, part-Asian, part-Native American but totally Caribbean. To perceive this is to understand the creative diversity which is at once cause and occasion, result and defining point of Caribbean cultural life.’

“I set out to create photographs which explore the region’s past and present, a story that embraces a fusion of cultures and has shaped a set of regional identities which vary from island to island, giving each nation its own distinctive character. In many ways it’s nonsense to attempt to cover such a large and varied area in a single exhibition, but whilst providing glimpses of different stories it aims to be the catalyst for much more. An oral history project organised by Bradford Museums, Windrush Communities Stories Project, which aims to record memories of the first generation who moved from the Caribbean to Bradford.”

Producing the show has brought back many memories for Tim. He says: “I hope it does the same for others who once lived in the Caribbean, and inspires people to further explore its history and links with Britain, perhaps by investigating their own family stories. I also hope people will discover something new about the Caribbean, and may be tempted to visit a fascinating, diverse part of the world which offers so much more than the images offered up by the tourist industry.”

* Visit bradfordmuseums.org