Police guitarist Summers' hidden talent

Annette Bartholomew
BBC News

The Desirer Walk the Streets photos were shot around the globe between 1983 and 2008

The Police guitarist Andy Summers has unveiled his new photographic exhibition and book at the stately home Nunnington Hall in North Yorkshire.

Summers has himself been the subject of many photographs while playing with The Police, one of the world's biggest rock bands.

During the 1980s it was barely possible to turn on the radio or television without hearing music by The Police.

Multi-selling hit records including Roxanne, Walking On The Moon, and Every Breath You Take captured an era and have earned the band lasting esteem.

Some musicians would be content just to be in the photograph but Summers used his time with the band as an opportunity to capture the people and places he encountered along the way.

The Police staged a successful reunion tour from 2007-2008 (right: Andy Summers)

The guitarist's interest in photography started back in the late 1970s. And his passion for this subject has grown and grown.

Desirer Walks the Streets is his third book of photos, a collection of black and white prints taken between 1983 and 2008 and now on show at Nunnington.

The hall's staff approached Summers several times about staging some of his work and eventually their perseverance paid off.

He, in turn, was thrilled the National Trust-owned property wanted to show his work as a photographer.

"I didn't know the National Trust staged photographic work," says Summers.

"Nunnington Hall's manager Simon Lee kept asking me and I just said OK.

"It is a different setting as I am used to more standard galleries in Los Angeles and New York. This exhibition is something else, but I am enjoying it."

Summers believes the visitors attracted to Nunnington Hall may be slightly shocked at the exhibition. as they are not entirely in keeping with the grandiose venue.

"Would the average person come here for a cream tea and some filthy photographs?" he jokes.

Desirer Walks the Streets is Andy Summers third book of photographs

"These are not like a set of landscapes or just celebrity portraits. They are more avant-garde. I don't want it to reflect my life.

"The photographs are documentary in the sense that on tour I started filming the radiator in my bedroom, the maid coming in, inside the limo, backstage and all kinds of other details."

Most of the pictures in Desirer Walks the Streets were taken at night, covering geographical areas from the Alto Plano of Bolivia to the alleys of Golden Gai in Tokyo.

The Nunnington exhibition marks the first time work from this new collection has gone on show in the UK.

The photographer Robert Frank is one of Summers' main influences, especially his classic 1959 book of photographs called The American.

Summers prefers to be classed as an artist who likes to keep his options open, rather than a guitarist from The Police or a photographer.

But most fans of the group are keen to discover if the recent world tour was the final outing for The Police.

"It is the eternal question," he says. "When we were on tour last August, someone asked if it was the final show ever and my response was that it was the final show of that tour.

"Back in the 80s I didn't think the door was finally shutting then and now I don't like to think of things ending forever."

The Desirer Walks the Streets book is available now, published by Nazraeli Press.

The exhibition is at Nunnington Hall, North Yorkshire until June 2009.