#21 CAMERA Book Review: Sefton Samuels - Northerners

A look through some of the wonderful photography by Mancunian photographer Sefton Samuels and his book on no nonsense northerners.

Sefton Samuels' Northerners: Portrait of a No Nonsense People brings together more than five decades of photographs documenting everyday life across Northern England. Published by Ebury in 2011, the book draws on images made from the 1950s onwards, recording the changing social, industrial and cultural landscape of cities and towns including Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford, St Helens and Salford. Alongside portraits of figures such as L. S. Lowry, George Best, Alan Bennett and Morrissey, Samuels devoted much of his career to photographing ordinary people, producing a sustained visual record of working class communities during a period of profound economic and social change.

Working as a photojournalist with a strong commitment to observational photography, Samuels documented factory workers, miners, football supporters, children playing in the street, musicians, fairgrounds, bingo halls and neighbourhood life with equal attention. His photographs avoid romanticising the North while also resisting familiar stereotypes, instead presenting humour, resilience and everyday experience through carefully observed moments. Northerners reflects a lifetime spent photographing the region from within, creating a broad documentary archive that records both the transformation of Northern England and the continuity of the communities that shaped its identity.

Sefton Samuels

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