The Lowry Centre, Salford
Until 1st March 2009

Covering almost a century, this major retrospective features work by seven of the The Guardian’s photographers, all based in the newspaper’s original home city of Manchester. As well as containing some fascinating and memorable individual images, the exhibition’s chronological layout also makes for an interesting parallel take on the history of photojournalism in general.

Walter Doughty was The Guardian’s first ever staff photographer. His “aftermath” shot of bleak, snow-covered Somme war graves is the type of picture we expect from his war-dominated, pre-Leica era of close combat and cumbersome cameras. However, even before Oskar Barnak’s celebrated 1925 invention, and more than a decade before it was famously exploited by the likes of Robert Capa, Doughty was actually using a small, hand-held camera, making memorable “action” shots during the Irish Civil War (the like of which, ironically, are seldom made in many of today’s PR-orchestrated battlegrounds). But it is the more reflective and staged moments that have the most power, such as a desolate mother and child after the 1920 burning of Cork, or a soldier behind at a bullet-hole riddled window, a marriage of art and storytelling which would slot easily into the modern-day newspaper.

Like any press photographer worth his salt, Tom Stuttart, who spent 40 years on The Guardian staff until 1971, was clearly a great all-rounder. His output included news iconography such as Neville Chamberlain waving his famous piece of paper, wonderful portraiture, and sublime landscapes. By contrast, Bob Smithies’ work is characterized mostly by imaginative composition, such as his portrait of Arthur Miller, where much of the frame is taken up by the sole of the playwright’s shoe. He was also adept at creating strong mood, as in a stark portrait of an unemployed man through 1970 DHSS frosted glass. Graham Finlayson also produced many memorable (and often humorous) candid portraits, and his timeless 1959 snapshot of a pub character could be a forerunner of Krass Clement’s Drum. While some of his work shows the Cartier-Bressonesque fashion of the times (and is none the worse off for it), a fondness for experimentation is also evident in his use of motion and blur.

Possibly the best known of the group, Don McPhee had his own retrospective at Manchester Art Galley in 2005. Highlights here include his 1974 rendering of Enoch Powell, as threatening and sinister as any movie vampire, and slice of life moments such as the boy traipsing through the snow in 1982’s Dickensian Watersheddings, Oldham. Juxtaposed with these are heavyweight news images, such as the 1984 Orgreave miner in a toy policeman’s helmet, eyeball to eyeball with a wearer of the genuine article, which is about as momentous as press photography can get.

The globetrotting Dennis Thorpe specializes in wonderful portraiture, with that rare ability to present even the most down-and-out subject with real dignity, as well as being a skilful landscape photographer (a frozen Hebden Bridge, a sunny Ribblehead Viaduct, and a besieged Strangeways prison at night). And a high-contrast image from of Japan, with the appealing simplicity of a woodblock print, displays his penchant for technique. Technical mastery of is also a key feature of current Guardian photographer Christopher Thormond’s work, as is a good dollop of imagination (such as his portrait of Ricky Hatton showing only his t-shirt, emblazoned with a picture of the boxer’s face), as the exhibition’s belated shift from black and white to colour jolts us suddenly from the past to the present.