Skins

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Watson’s work is notable for a few reasons, not least the tenderness he lends to a group long vilified in the media. His pictures feel real because they bring us inside a circle of friends the same way we might experience life: variances of closeness and distance, a metered consistency of looking, tinges of sentiment belied by pragmatism. In short, the end of youth. What’s crazy to me is I took so many pictures,” Watson says on the phone from his London studio. “I couldn’t afford to do it. No one ever paid me to do it. No one ever saw the pictures. I just took them for no real reason, except that I enjoyed taking them.” EJ: That’s amazing. I want to touch on music again briefly because it’s such an integral part of your work… Skins by Gavin Watson has been argued as being ‘the single most important record’ of 1970s skinhead culture in Britain, who have possibly been one of the most reviled yet misunderstood of the nation’s youth subcultures.” — Daily Mail

Gavin Watson is the photographer changing the narrative on Gavin Watson is the photographer changing the narrative on

Until a few years ago Gavin's images had been held within underground cult status, with his work being brought into the media by Shane Meadows after images from ‘Skins’ Gavin's first book were used as the inspiration and muse for the award winning film This is England. However, having a camera in his hand clearly shaped how he navigated his teenage years. “I wouldn’t say I hid behind my photography but it definitely helped me as a shy person,” he explains. He also mentions its role in helping his dyslexia as well as how it gave him a channel to process his teenage frustration: “Instead of just being angry, I did something with it and expressed it.” Images by Gavin Watson from Oh! What Fun We Had Images by Gavin Watson from Oh! What Fun We HadFirst published in 1994, Gavin Watson’s inimitable publication Skins is one of the most renowned documentations of British sub-culture to date. Beginning his career aged fourteen after impulsively purchasing a camera at Woolworth’s, Watson’s photographs have inspired films, exhibited globally and most importantly, been shared between the people who stood before his lens three decades ago as a reminder of their glory days.

Skins - ACC Art Books UK Skins - ACC Art Books UK

By the time Gavin Watson had left school at the age of 16, he had already amassed more than 10,000 photographs of his friends, taken at a council estate in High Wycombe, during the time the second generation of British skinheads were coming of age in the late 1970s and early 80s. Intimate, vibrant and full of character, his new book is a testament to the inclusiveness and diversity that skinhead culture was actually born of, demystifying the stereotypes that skins have struggled to shake off since. Though it wasn’t specifically his intention, the book naturally helps to counter the Neo-Nazi rhetoric it has come to be associated with, and he insists vehemently that real skinhead culture – the kind he experienced growing up – is a world away from the depiction fuelled by mainstream media. Their style was an exaggerated version of the traditional unskilled laborer. One of the first scholars to research skinheads, sociologist Mike Brake, classified skinheads as a “traditional working-class delinquent subculture” and documented five traits that defined first-generation British skinheads: toughness and violence; football (soccer), ethnocentrism, Puritan work ethic; and a cynical worldview.EJ: I wanted to ask you about one image in particular called Skinny Jim because it’s become one of your most iconic photographs, what was the story behind it? What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer, so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing.” –Shane Meadows (Director of award-winning film This Is England). Gavin Watson’s cult documentary photo book Skins chronicles the radical and inclusive spirit which originally animated the emerging skinhead culture of 70s Britain.” — Dazed GW: I’ve only just started to own that, it’s taken me until nearly turning 60 to actually own that I did that. I spent most of my life making excuses and saying, “Oh anyone could have done it.” It’s only recently I’ve been able to own it, I’ve done the most incredible things to avoid what I’ve done. Skins by Gavin Watson is arguably the single most important record of ’70s skinhead culture in Britain. Rightly celebrated as a true classic of photobook publishing, the book is now reissued in a high-quality new edition under close supervision from the photographer.