Renowned social documentary photographer Ian Beesley has described the importance of the stories behind photos as well as what motivates his craft.
In his talk at Leeds Trinity University’s Journalism and Media Week, Beesley, who is from Bradford, emphasised the need to understand the story of a photograph and the context in which it was taken. He said: “The stories that I have are probably better than the photographs.”
An important motivation for the 70 year old is representing his community and raising awareness of issues faced in his local area. Being from Bradford, a significant amount of his work has focused on the heavy industry around Yorkshire and the impacts of events such as the miners’ strike and general deindustrialisation.
The theme of deindustrialisation was present throughout the photos shown in the talk. Beesley focused on a collection of photographs that documented the collapse of the Bradford textile industry. Within this, he told a particularly striking story surrounding his photos of a bobbin mill–a factory that would spin yarn–that was about to be demolished.
“I got access on the day that the demolition crews walked in, and I was photographing things and 30 minutes later they did not exist,” said Mr Beesley.
Mr Beesley was motivated to take these photos in order to capture how the mill operated and to record the day to day lives of those who worked there. He also felt it was important to document that the place existed, and preserve the history of the mill following its demolition. He said: “It’s about evidence of presence and that people used to work there before.”
One particular photo Mr Beesley took showed the working conditions of a wool factory and led to subsequent attacks in the local press, with the director of the Wool Board attacking him on Radio Leeds. Mr Beesley said: “He accused me of being a subversive, probably a Marxist revolutionary and that I was trying to bring down capitalist society.”
These criticisms he faced often upset him as a young photographer. However, he added that with more experience, he now views backlash as a sign of success and that he had upset the right people.
Throughout his talk it was clear that he felt that his photography represented the communities he was a part of. It was clear he felt the stories that fed into each photograph were meaningful to him, and he was eager to show the context of each photo to raise awareness of issues that made it possible for him to capture the image.