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1980s

32 images Created 20 Feb 2012

Reportage photography from the 1980s.

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  • At the famous Butlins holiday camp in the Somerset town of Minehead, a poolside lifeguard overlooks the main  pool from an overhead bridge. Behind him a monorail transports holidaymakers around the resort. Wearing the large letter B for Butlins on his red vest, the young lad sucks on his whistle held between his lips and prominently, the words 'Made in England' have been tattooed on his left shoulder - as if a statement for his patriotic ideals but also for those of Butlins - an institution for the British working classes who after the war had the opportunity to spend their summers at special resorts in seaside towns that provided entertainment and fun. Butlins and other camp businesses went into decline when the masses preferred Spanish vacations but have since been revived as travel costs have again soared and holidays at home are once again popular.
    butlins_pool08-16-1986.jpg
  • Original wrought iron features are rusting in the old lido (now demolished) that was a main attraction for generations in Minehead.
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  • Original soldier sentry statues that adorn the wall of an old building at the regenerated Butlins holiday centre at Minehead.
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  • Holidaymakers shelter from typical summer rain during their stay at the regenerated Butlins holiday centre at Minehead.
    butlins1-16-08-1986.jpg
  • It is 1985 and a farmer walks along a line of long, combustible straw and with a pitchfork and smouldering straw, sets fire to the organic material in an Essex field, southern England. It is late summer and the harvested corn has left behind short stubble which the farmer sets ablaze. This now restricted practice of destroying cereal straw and stubble by flame was stopped by the introduction of The Crop Residues (Burning) Regulations of 1993 which now restricts farmers on burning crop materials, including residues of oilseed rape, field beans and peas, except in very limited circumstances, e.g. for disease control where a plant health order has been served. The burning of straw and stubble also deprives the soil of valuable organic material and releases greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. ..
    stubble_burning08-18-1985.jpg
  • Five friends walk briskly along a street in the southern Polish city of Krakow. One of the ladies is a bride and has either just married the your man whose arm she's holding, or she is hurrying to her wedding ceremony and the friends around her are all on their way to the church. Another girl is probably her bridesmaid, dressed in frilly blue. There are bouquets of fresh flowers and this is a very special day for these young people who are delighted to attend this wedding somewhere in this city where so many atrocities occurred during the second world war. The picture looks dated from the 1980s but it's the summer of 1990, when Poland was about to undergo massive changes economically and culturally. Their clothing looks very east European for that era and are about to stride past a unisex hairdresser's shop window where a model's face stares to the viewer.
    krakow_wedding07-20-1990.jpg
  • Two futures traders from the LLIFE exchange shop for expensive Rolex watches during their lunchtimes in the City of London. .The LIFFE exchange was synonymous with Thatcherite capitalist money-making ethos in the City of London of the 80s and early 90s before the takeover by Euronext in January 2002. It is currently known as Euronext.liffe. Euronext subsequently merged with New York Stock Exchange in April 2007.
    llife_shopping01-25-06-1993.jpg
  • Two brokers working at the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE) have finished trading for the day and are resting chatting to colleages beneath a large old-fashioned dot matrix sign telling us the market's value at the close of business. They both wear orange jackets denoting their respective employers. They sit on the trading floor, otherwise known as the Pit where Derivatives, Options, Futures and their contracts are exchanged in a frenzy of arm and hand expressions which communicate prices and quantities. The LIFFE exchange was synonymous with Thatcherite capitalist money-making ethos in the City of London of the 80s and early 90s before the takeover by Euronext in January 2002. It is currently known as Euronext.liffe. Euronext subsequently merged with New York Stock Exchange in April 2007.
    city_london15-15-12-2007 .jpg
  • A businessman wearing a light summer suit and carrying a briefcase walks away in the opposite direction to Canary Wharf tower which is seen over his shoulder from across a tree-lined Brockwell Park in South London, approximately 7.5 miles away. The flattened-perspective is because of an extremely long telephoto lens making it seem closer than it is in reality. Canary Wharf is the product of the 1980s financial boom when during the office of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, huge building projects such as the Docklands consortium saw vast changes in London's landscape.
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  • Canary Wharf tower seen through a telephoto lens from across West India Docks, London Docklands, East London England. We see dozens of office windows illuminated by fragmented solar light from a rising sun. Office windows reflect that golden orange light which underexposes the darkened sky behind and the remainder of the building. Canary Wharf is the product of the 1980s  financial boom when during the office of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, huge building projects such as the Docklands consortium saw vast changes in London's landscape.
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  • Red glowing sun reflected off the glossy facade of Canary Wharf tower next to electricity pylons.
    electricity_power01-05-08-1991.jpg
  • Office lights illuminate the 800 foot tower at 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf in London Docklands, one of the tallest buildings in Europe.  Designed by the Argentine architect César Pelli, construction was completed in 1991. Identifiable from a great distance as an obelisk-shaped tower with its aircraft warning light flashing on top, this building is a monument to 1980s-style capitalism...From the 'Windows' series. ..Since Microsoft brought about the name Windows to brand the PC computing user interface, I have taken it upon myself to collect and henceforth, add to - a group of pictures about the original window, long after the original word was hijacked by a man called Gates.  More will be added during 2007...Windows have been around for a long time - the Romans invaders even had a glass substance that sealed the chilly British air - and stench - from their sensitive Roman noses. ..Nowadays, I'm attracted to the labelling and messaging that becomes attached to the inside or outside of panes of glass, as if they are urban, public post-it notes for anything an individual wishes to share or advertise.  Sometimes the message can be a warning, a cry for help or just an accidental freak of mis-spelling that somehow creates a different meaning altogether to that intended. ..
    canary rba.jpg
  • A farmer near the village of Grudziadz in Southern Poland rests on a hat cart on the edge of a corn field during harvest. it is later afternoon and the sun is falling on his weathered face and crossed arms which are muscular and veined, signs of a life of hard labour. He is in deep thought, perhaps thinking of Poland's fast-changing economy, now that the Berlin Wall has fallen and Poland is soon to become a member of the European Community (EU). Of Poland's 18,727,000 hectares of agricultural land (about 60 percent of the country's total area), 14,413,000 hectares is used for crop cultivation.
    misc_poland02-06-09-2007.jpg
  • Shipbuilders manhandle heavy piping up a ramp of stairs as another worker's sparks from welding falls below on the hull of a large German ferry at the Polish Gdansk shipyard - once known as the Lenin Shipyard but still the largest of its kind in modern Poland. The grimy and hazardous working conditions make for a dangerous environment in which to work. Here in 1980 the union Solidarity (Solidarnosc) was conceived and was partly responsible for a growing dissent against Communist rule, ultimately contributing towards the fall of the Berlin Wall. Lech Walesa started his political career as an electrical technician here, going on to lead Solidarity and then to become President of a democratic Poland. Today Gdansk is a major industrial city and shipping port.
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  • Children play near a puddle in the town of Nova Huta. In filthy industrial streets, the kids look undernourished in this scene of impoverished, Communist dereliction. It is horribly depressing and unhealthy place to grow up and these children are pale and yet seem happy, with smiles on their faces. The famous steel works can be seen reflected in the puddle before them. After the war, Stalin decided to build an industrial Communist fantasy just outside Krakow: a model town and immense steelworks of the future. The steelworks was named after Lenin and the town would be called Nowa Huta  - or, the new steel mill. At its peak, 27,000 people worked at the Lenin Steelworks. But Solidarity grew strong forcing strikes over pay and recognition over their union. Today, it is an economic and ecological disaster area..
    nova_huta_puddle01-20-06-1990.jpg
  • A mannequin family of parents and children display clothes on sale in a Polish shop in Ostroleka, Poland.
    misc_poland08-06-09-2007.jpg
  • Children play in a desolate street in the town of Nova Huta. Amid the filthy walls of their tenement building home and of the grim, car less street beyond, two older children play in their doorway while younger friends peer from around a corner. It is horribly depressing and unhealthy place to grow up and these children are pale and yet seem happy, with smiles on their faces. The famous steel works can be seen st the end of the street. After the war, Stalin decided to build an ideological communist fantasy just outside Krakow: a model town and immense steelworks of the future. The steelworks was named after Lenin and the town would be called Nova Huta. At its peak, 27,000 people worked at the Lenin Steelworks. But Solidarity grew strong forcing strikes over pay and recognition over their union. Today, it is an economic and ecological disaster area. .
    misc_poland06-06-09-2007.jpg
  • A seller of flowers stands looking down a street in the Polish capital, Warsaw. Holding a single bouquet, the elderly man has located himself on the corner of Zapiecek and Piwna Street awaiting a buyer. With his hand on one hip, he has laid more yellow and red flowers that he has probably grown himself and is trying to make a meagre living from. But there are few people on this street this early in the oldest part of Warsaw and the walls appear to be damp, with discoloured plaster after decades of decay under a Communist government. Old paving slabs on the pavement and a cobbled road give a sense of history and wartime destruction for these streets saw many atrocities during the German occupation in WW2. This is a scene of pessimism and poverty yet with a small degree of hope in the fresh flowers.
    krakow_street-20-07-1990.jpg
  • Looking down from a high viewpoint, prospective auction bidders take notes from their catalogues of old red British Telecom (BT) pay phone boxes which are lined up on display in their hundreds before the actual sale starts. The 'lots' are squeezed together along pathways allowing customers to thoroughly inspect their potential purchases' details. This is a wide-angle picture taken on the slant with the distant boxes curling around to the left. One man in blue who has opened the stiff-opening door, cranes his neck to look up into the ceiling of these solid cast-iron frames. The K-series kiosks were largely designed in 1936 by the iconic designer Giles Gilbert Scott.
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  • Young Born Again Christians express emtions during a ministry at Butlins holiday centre in Minehead, Somerset, England.
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  • Paula Douthett of the Sacred Dance Group holds a large cross at the christian friends' home in Dorset
    uk_evangelists03-25-04-1986.jpg
  • A young, vulnerable-looking youth stands close to two members of a local Evangelical church who are using a carpet warehouse as a temporary Ministry. Rolls of carpets and rugs are behind these Christians as the two officials practice the 'laying on of hands' to cleanse the soul of their young convert during a religious meeting in Newport, Wales. As the ceremony takes place when this boy is persuaded to accept Jesus into his life, two retail signs proclaim the prices and credit terms of the household items. The laying on of hands is a religious practice found throughout the world in varying forms. In Christian churches, this practice is used as both a symbolic and formal method of invoking the Holy Spirit during baptisms, healing services, blessings, and ordination of priests, ministers, elders, deacons, and other holy church ceremonies.
    RB_034-13-05-1986.jpg
  • Billy Graham preaches with sincere, confidently open hands to British Christians during Mission 89, a series of evangelical revival rallies in London, England. Graham is an Evangelical Christian who has been a spiritual adviser to several U.S. presidents including George W Bush with Time Magazine calling him ".. the nation's spiritual counselor."  He is number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for the 20th century and member of the Southern Baptist Convention. Here he is seen towering on a giant screen over the small heads of his UK congregation who are sitting passively listening to the message of this great man of God. The scale of his personality and presence above them makes this a powerful image of leadership and of followers.
    billy_graham_rally02-03-09-2007.jpg
  • Seen from behind, two young boys tag the inside the 1980s carriage of a 1990s London Underground train, on 8th November 1989, in London, England. in 1980s London, graffiti was a persistent problem that costs the transport company network up to £3 million a year to remove. If caught, juvenile delinquents like usually escaped with only a caution because of their age - although older ones were prosecuted. (Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images)
    graffiti_boys-08-11-1989.jpg
  • 1980s Sri Lankan schoolgirls in clean white uniforms and visiting the ancient city of Polonnaruwa, stand alongside the Shiva Devale temple, on 12th Arpil 1980, at Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka. Shiva Devale No 2 is the oldest structure in Polonnaruwa and dates from the brief Chola period, when the Indian invaders established the city. Built in the 11th century, this Hindu temple built entirely of stone. Within in the sanctum is a stone carved lingam or phallus, a symbol of Hindu god Diva. In front of the temple is the Nandi bull, God Shiva’s vehicle. Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka’s splendid medieval capital was established as the first city of the land in the 11th Century, A.D. (Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images)
    polonnaruwa_girls-12-04-1980.jpg
  • Cranes and lifting equipment raise wreckage from a train carriage after the Clapham rail disaster at Wandsworth, on 12th December 1988, in London, England. (Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images)
    clapham_crash-12-12-1988.jpg
  • The musician with the 80s band The Police, Sting supports the charity Sport Aid's running event in London's Hyde Park, on 25th May 1986, in London, England. Sport Aid (also known as Sports Aid) was a sport-themed campaign for African famine relief held in May 1986, involving several days of all-star exhibition events in various sports, and culminating in the Race Against Time, a 10 km fun run held simultaneously in 89 countries. Timed to coincide with a UNICEF development conference in New York City, Sport Aid raised $37m for Live Aid and UNICEF. A second lower-key Sport Aid was held in 1988. (Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images)
    sting_sportaid-25-05-1986.jpg
  • 1970s schoolchildren play during break time at their school in rural Crete, on 13th Aril 1979, in Lasithi, Crete, Greece. (Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images)
    greek_playground-13-04-1979.jpg
  • 1,890 meters (6,200 feet) above sea level and surrounded by lush tea plantations in Sri Lanka's Hill Country district of Nuwara Eliya, women tea pickers bend over trees to harvest Ceylon tea leaves that are taken to the white building on the left for processing. A carpet of velvety green tea bushes stretch into the far distance. This is the heart of the island's tea industry but was a pleasure retreat of the European planters due to its temperate English climate that produces the finest leaves for the country's economy. Teas from this highest region are described as the champagne of Ceylon teas. The leaf is gathered all year round but the finest teas are made from that plucked in January and February. The best teas of the area give a rich, golden, excellent quality liquor that is smooth, bright, and delicately perfumed.
    tea_picking04-12-1980.jpg
  • Seen from behind, two young boys are busy writing their graffiti tags on windows on a London underground tube train, during an overland section of the capital's rail system near Ladbroke Grove in 1989.
    graffiti_tube_kids-08-11-1989.jpg
  • Angry residents from Kent march over the river Thames and past Parliament to protest over the planned high-speed (TGV-style) rail link from London to the south-east coast, on 5th August 1989, in London, England. Locals from the Darenth Valley in rural Kent, against the forthcoming Channel Tunnel rail link organised their own campaign to reverse decisions by British Rail to cut a new rail link through their community. British Rail announced that 150mph TGV trains would travel through their rural Kent countryside, forcing residents to sell their homes within a 240 metre corridor to the rail line, at great loss while splitting up the community. (Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images)
    rail_link_protest01-05-08-1989.jpg
  • A detail of home-made posters by residents from Kent over the planned high-speed (TGV-style) rail link from London to the south-east coast, on 5th August 1989, in London, England. Locals from the Darenth Valley in rural Kent, against the forthcoming Channel Tunnel rail link organised their own campaign to reverse decisions by British Rail to cut a new rail link through their community. British Rail announced that 150mph TGV trains would travel through their rural Kent countryside, forcing residents to sell their homes within a 240 metre corridor to the rail line, at great loss while splitting up the community.
    rail_link_protest02-05-08-1989.jpg
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