Mike Abrahams - This Was Then

In the opening of his new book, “This Was Then” Mike Abrahams states “these photographs, taken between 1973 and 2001, are of ordinary lives that are so often ignored and marginalized.” The book showcases 133 of his black and white images. He goes on to say, “even though I have been privileged to travel widely with my camera, it is the lives that I have been able to document in Britain that hold the greatest significance for me. “ Those years were marked by major political and economic upheaval, and Mike’s camera captures ordinary people, old and the young, going through both the mundane and the chaotic moments of their lives.
From the Bluecoat Press release:
“This Was Then” is the first career-spanning book by one of the UK’s most significant documentary photographers. Shot across Britain over three decades, in the years before and after Margaret Thatcher’s time in government, “This Was Then” brilliantly captures seemingly small moments of everyday life that tell a far bigger story of Britain during this time. Abrahams’ photographs demonstrate his unerring ability to capture “ordinary people living extraordinary lives”. We at Bluecoat Press are proud to be publishing this landmark collection of over 100 of these iconic images with traditional tri-tone printing bringing these amazing photographs to life on the page. Mike became a photographer after working for the ambulance service in Liverpool. Entering some of the last occupied homes in condemned streets proved a revelation and he returned with his camera, and some of these first images appear in This Was Then. Asked once why he takes photographs in black and white, Mike Abrahams explained: “I grew up in Liverpool in the 1950s and 60s, a city in which to my eyes, colour was absent.”
"Still War", his collection of photographs from Northern Ireland was described by Colin Jacobson of The Independent Magazine as “documentary photography at its best – imaginative, comprehensive, confident and concerned." These are qualities true of all his work in This Was Then. From children playing in front of armed soldiers in Belfast to daily life continuing amid the tenements of Glasgow and the demolished terraces of Liverpool to a chuckling policeman leading a racist march through the streets of south London, “This Was Then” delivers an unmissable, alternative vision of British life in the late 20th century. As he writes in his introduction to “This Was Then”: “I was not interested in the fact that people threw stones, only in why they threw them.”
More information about the book is below.