Private View Review - Christopher Simon Sykes ‘A Richer Dust Concealed’ @ Getty Images Gallery

Writer and photographer Christopher Simon Sykes was brought up at Sledmere, the Sykes family home. It's a rather large house; more of an estate than a semi-detached. So, it's safe to say that he knows a little something about the ins and outs of country piles. In fact, over the past thirty years, he's taken quite a few photos of these grand homes, bringing together a exstensive catalogue of pictures, which covers everywhere from the Devonshire seat of Chatsworth to Stanway House in Gloucestershire.

As with most large, old, expensive to run, homes, many of the places covered in Getty Images' current Sykes’ show, the aptly named ‘A Richer Dust Concealed’, are open to the public. However, unlike the paying punters, Skyes has enjoyed an up close and personal view. His images are intimate, like sights experienced by an unseen onlooker, quietly standing in the shadows, taking it all in. While there’s a fair amount of architectural coverage here – a frozen, snowed under 'Castle Howard', a smokey, static 'Woburn at Dust' – the prints that hold interest are the more personal, almost voyeuristic ones; Barbara Clutton Brock playing patience in her drawing room, Humphrey Wakefield taking it easy with his dog and, perhaps the strongest, a cluttered, chaotic 'Chatsworth Library’ in which the Duke of Devonshire, surrounded by the days' papers, lies asleep on the couch. This is an pogniant picture that sums up exactly why the prints exhibited here are more than mere image bank shots. You see, it's an absolute insider's view from Sykes. His photographs are quietly atmospheric, leaving you with the impression of a quietened room, or space, after some sort of busy activity. And that's what make these pictures so precious - seeing the aristocratic in a magical yet average, sometimes ordinary light.

Christopher Simon Sykes 'A Richer Dust Concealed' is currently on show at Getty Images Gallery, 46 Eastcastle Street, London W1.