ART AND SOUL; Ex-policeman puts the atmosphere back into photos.

PHOTOGRAPHER Robert Norbury is fed up of modern photographic art - so he's set up his own exhibition to show others his way.

The 58-year-old from Meltham believes modern art has become something of a cliche.

"There is no atmosphere or emotion - it's just insolence,'' he said.

"Modern photography is the portrait of teenagers staring blankly to the camera.

"It's overdone. You go to an exhibition and there's the same subject and style and it's boring."

In the battle against tired, 'deadpan' photography, Robert, hosts his Positive Digital exhibition at Sleepers bar on Viaduct Street in Huddersfield town centre from December 3 (6.30pm) until mid-February.

Naturally the event features plenty of Robert's emotional, entertaining and natural snaps.

His work was, in part, inspired by the 'stuckist' movement.

This movement was started in 1999 by British artists Billy Childish and Charles Thomson as a reaction to 'conceptual art'.

Stuckists championed a return to art as a form of communication and expression rather than the nihilism and novelty of conceptual art.

One notorious example of conceptual art was Damien Hirst's 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living' - a dead shark preserved in a glass case which sold for $8m in 2004.

Robert, who retired from his 'day job' as a police sergeant in 2001, said: "There's too much explanation in art today.

"There's too much explanation and theory. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's also a place for people to walk into an art gallery and enjoy art without having to think about it too hard.

"You're doing the picture for the picture's sake not for the concept.

"I want to see some skill in art, not a shampoo bottle in a glass case!

"The first thing art needs to be is entertaining. Maybe I'm a bit stuck myself in the way I look at photography."

The Yorkshire hills where Robert has spent so much of his life also feature heavily in his work.

He says: "The valleys seem to suit the way I take my pictures. I like the atmosphere of it."

For more about Robert and his artwork visit www.robertnorbury.com

CAPTION(S):

CREATIVE: Two of Robert Norbury's pictures, The Singer''s Shoes and Lurcher, Wessenden, which will be on display at Sleepers bar ARTIST: Robert Norbury