A MAN in Victorian dress walks along the silent streets of Whitby early in the morning. He moves slowly, weighed down by the burden of carrying a heavy camera and tripod, and a bag full of glass plate negatives.

His progress is being tracked by a modern day television film crew as, 150 years after his birth, pioneering photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe becomes the subject of moving pictures.

Producer and director Charles Bowden recreated the scene - with a local amateur dramatic society player standing in as Sutcliffe - for his Tyne Tees and Yorkshire documentary The Camera Man.

The Victorian photographer is famous for his sepia images of life in Whitby. He took more than 1,500 pictures over 50 years, won many awards, and became known all over the world for his work.

The programme came about after Michael Shaw, curator of the Sutcliffe collection, mentioned that there hadn't been a full documentary on Sutcliffe for 30 years and that the 150th anniversary of his birth would be a good opportunity to make one.

Bowden already knew about the photographer, having come across his work while researching a previous Tyne Tees documentary, The Last Fishermen.

Sutcliffe took photographs on large glass plate negatives. "They're quite big and used to slot into the back of a whole plate camera. He had to haul this around, like a hod bearing bricks, all over Whitby," says Bowden.

Although he became associated with his pictures of Whitby, he was born in Headingley, Leeds, in October 1853. His father, Thomas, was a watercolour artist. "But he was very much at the cutting edge of technology and encouraged his son to get into photography at an early age. He was one of the first people in Leeds to have a proper camera," explains Bowden.

"He moved to Whitby in 1871. Four years later, Frank Sutcliffe set up a business as a photographer, in a disused jet workshop in Waterloo Yard.

"He made his living by taking portraits. They were very popular and fashionable. A lot of people had postcards made of their pictures. Local worthies and visitors had their pictures taken by him."

Taking portraits was a way of earning money, but Sutcliffe's real interest was capturing on camera life and people in their working environment in the Yorkshire fishing town.

His photographs won prizes in national and international competitions, taking 62 gold, silver and bronze medals from exhibitions all over the country.

As well as photographing fishermen and their families, Sutcliffe took pictures around the town and surrounding countryside - including of farmers and their horse-drawn equipment, women with milk churns, and wind-swept sheep on the Moors.

His fame attracted people to Whitby. "Whitby became a bit of a photographers' Mecca because of what he did. They came to Whitby after seeing exhibitions all over the country," says Bowden.

"They would come with their little box cameras to take pictures. Other photographers came to Whitby and tried to copy what he did, but his sepia pictures were unique."

Sutcliffe's retirement in 1922 was short-lived. Within a week, he'd been appointed curator of Whitby Museum, where he worked until his death in 1941.

The Sutcliffe collection was bought by professional photographer Bill Eglon Shaw in 1959, and remains in his family's ownership. His son, Michael, is currently copying the images from the glass plate negatives onto computer disks to preserve them for the future.

Many of his photographs are on show at the Sutcliffe Gallery in Flowergate in Whitby. Copies and postcards of his pictures continue to be bought by visitors from all over the world.

"Compared to other photographers of his era, Sutcliffe managed to produce pictures from his photographs as opposed to just a straight record," says Michael Shaw. "Their quality is so good and the combination of technical quality and artist input is so high, it really does make them very special."

As well as the weight of the Victorian photographic equipment, Sutcliffe had to contend with the natural elements.

North Yorkshire landscape photographer Joe Cornish tells the programme that one of his favourite Sutcliffe pictures is of waves crashing over the pier during a winter storm. "Despite his camera's limitations, he has somehow captured all of the drama of the moment in a beautifully composed photograph," he comments.

A number of his pictures feature shipwrecks, a regular occurrence in those days. Bowden says that Sutcliffe needed all his ingenuity to capture such scenes in bad weather. "He had to hold a heavy camera and tripod steady in fierce winds. On one occasion, he commandeered a local sailor to lie on the ground and hold the feet of the tripod to make sure he got a steady picture."

Sutcliffe was pioneering in terms of his art rather than technology. "One of the extraordinary things is how he managed to get people to pose naturally because he was quite shy and retiring. His photographs are artistically beautiful and very natural," says Bowden.

The Camera Man also tells how Sutcliffe's pictures brought together one couple. Musician Ray Randall, from the Sixties group The Tornados, travelled to Whitby after seeing his photograph of fishergirl Polly Swallow. He was fascinated by her and wanted to learn more about her.

At the same time, Jenny Matthews journeyed from Lancashire to find out more about another of his fishergirl photographs, this one featuring Lizzie Hawksfield.

By chance, Ray and Jenny met, fell in love and set up home together. With Jenny as his manager, Randall is back playing music in pubs and clubs around North Yorkshire. "It was chance, but Sutcliffe brought us together," Jenny says.

* The Camera Man is on Tyne Tees Television on Sunday, October 26, at 2pm.