A century after John Thomson’s Street Life in London, Chris Killip
photographed the working classes of the North of England. Focusing on the
industrial and mining regions hit hard by the economic upheaval of the Margaret
Thatcher years, he pictured people caught in a system that neglected them. Killip
included this image in his book of photographs on disenfranchised Brits taken in
the 1970s and 1980s, In Flagrante (1988),
one of the most significant photobooks of the late 20th century. This is no
beautiful picture of the famous British seaside or a sentimental image of the
poor, but a bleak portrayal of faceless people in a fractured community. Killip
was able to offer a unique perspective since he lived among his subjects and
knew them well.