Edges of Recession by Steve Ferrier

It’s 1988, The Smiths have split up the year before, Thatcher’s still in power, Iraq has just invaded Kuwait, unemployment is at over three million and we’re entering another recession that wouldn’t end for another three years.

I’m at the beginning of a design career that was to be marked by periods of casual redundancy and thin freelancing opportunities. But I’ve got a Canon A1 bought with money earned from evenings skivying at a military dental school (with a bit extra knocked off using my sister’s generous staff discount at Boots), time on my hands and no-one to answer to. I was off - off to Clacton.

I spent maybe the next three years taking off to the coast beginning on the Essex coastline and working my way round to the Weymouth in the southwest. Then I got a break, a decent job that took up all my time and more, and the negatives went into a box where they stayed for the next twenty-eight years.

And then I took them out of the box and made a book.

Three of the images were chosen to be part of the Turner Contemporary's touring exhibition, Seaside Photographed.

210x148x8mm

Edition of 200