Research Point. Committed B&W Photographers.
Exit Photography Group.
The Exit Group of Photographers were three socially aware photographers, Chris Steele-Perkins, Paul Trevor and Nicholas Battye, who worked together from 1974 to 1979 on highlighting the privations of England’s municipal poor. Up until 1974 there existed a looser group that included Diane Olson and Alex Slotzkin, who in 1974 published a slim volume group called Down Wapping that contained black and white photographs of London’s East End poor.
In 1974 Diane and Alex left to be replaced by Chris. The Gulbenkian Foundation was so impressed by Down Wapping that it offered support to a project to extend this style of work out into other Metropolitan areas of the UK.
The three divided up the work so that Paul concentrated on Liverpool, Nicholas in Birmingham, and Chris Newcastle, Middlesborough and Belfast. They shared the London work as they still lived there.
The use of black and white was carried over from Down Wapping into the new project. This allowed them to load their own cassettes, process their own film and control the editing of the images. The resulting work, published in 1982, Survival Programmes: In Britain's Inner Cities, was split into four chapters, Growth, Promise, Welfare and Reaction.
In 2011 Paul Trevor exhibited a number of previously unseen images from his time in Liverpool. The exhibition, called, Like you’ve Never Been Away, raised a lot of interest from people, now in the 40s, who had been photographed back in the 70s. In the Guardian video link Paul talks fondly of his time in Liverpool and how, on visiting Liverpool for the exhibition, he hardly recognised it.
Here is good example of photographs crossing from the documentary sector to the gallery and the art sectors, as well as being historical documents in their own right.
Paul Trevor. Born, London 1947.
Worked as an accountant until the age of 25. Turned to the camera and in 1973 co-founded the Exit Photography Group. He set up the Half Moon Workshop in 1978
and co-edited the Camerawork magazine from 1976 to 1980. His photographic achievements are too many to list but are to be found on his website www.paultrevor.com.
Chris Steele-Perkins. Born, Rangoon, Burma 1947.
Started as a freelance photographer in 1971. Joined the Exit Group in 1975.
Nicholas Battye. Born, NSW Australia. 1950. Died 2004.
Joined the Exit Group but became disillusioned with photography after the publication of Survival Programmes and became variously a teacher, therapist and poet.
Down Wapping. The Exit Photographic Group. Publisher: East End Docklands Action Group (1974).
Website: http://Photoworks.org Exit-Photography-Group.
[Accessed: 16th. July 2015].
Magnum Photographers. Chris Steele-Perkins.
www.chrissteeleperkins.com
www.chrissteeleperkins.com
[Accessed: 18th. July 2015].
[Accessed: 17th July 2015].
[Accessed : 16th July 2015].
[Accessed: 18th. July 2015].
It is clear from the collaboration of these three men that their motivation was to highlight the living conditions of people living in the poorer parts of inner cities. Their motivation was never money as their lack of it shows, living as they did on friends charity or in cheap B & Bs.
Their commitment to social causes took different routes with Paul Trevor continuing his work in highlighting the inequalities of life with exhibitions such as As We Are: Photographing Britain (2007), and No Such Thing as Society (2008).
Chris Steele-Perkins looked further afield for his inspiration and worked in Beirut, Afghanistan, and Tokyo as well as Britain. He remains a socially aware photographer.
Nicholas Battye left photography behind and took up a life as a Sufi mystic, teacher, therapist, and poet. He died in 2005 following a long illness.
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