Chris Steele-Perkins' book offers a complex and layered vision: an ambiguous love song to an extraordinary city
"Everything shifts as you move, and different things come into focus at different points of your life, and you try to articulate that"
- Chris Steele-Perkins
Chris Steele-Perkins has produced some of the most iconic images of British society in the last half-century, exploring youth subcultures, poverty and community with artful sensitivity. His more than 45-year career has seen him travel widely, making significant bodies of work in his home country of Myanmar, as well as Japan, Africa and Afghanistan, all of which have received critical acclaim.
After marrying his second wife, Miyako Yamada, he embarked on a long-term photographic exploration of Japan, publishing Fuji in 2000. A highly personal diary of 2001, Echoes, was published in 2003, and the second of his Japanese books, Tokyo Love Hello, in March 2007. His documentation of rural life in County Durham, which was published as Northern Exposures in 2007. In 2009, he published a collection of work from 40 years of photographing England – England, My England. His book on British centenarians, Fading Light, was published in 2012 and his latest book A Place in the Country, a year in the life of a great English Country Estate was published by Dewi Lewis in 2014.
Steele-Perkins has worked on commission for many high-profile publications including The Sunday Times magazine and The Guardian and selected commercial clients include Nissan, Purina and Spencer Hart.
He continues to work in Britain and abroad. His recent project, documenting diversity and migration in London, was published as a book The New Londoners, in summer 2019, while a book on his work in Japan will be published at the end of 2019.
Steele Perkins became a member of Magnum Photos in 1979.