The Daniel Meadows Archive is housed in the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford. This website, with its 500 photographs and 40 videos, gives a window onto that archive.
I began doing documentary work in Manchester back in the early 'seventies.
Inspired by the writings of George Orwell and the photographs of Bill Brandt, I went to live in Moss Side, an inner city area which was undergoing regeneration, its residents moving away.
To get close to people, I rented a disused barber's, my Shop on Greame Street, and opened it at weekends as a free photography studio.
“Meadows was making a different kind of portrait, one more susceptible to the changing cultural climate of the decade, with a greater feeling of collaboration, or at least a sense of the subject controlling the photographer rather than the other way around... Pop-up studios are popular today, but in the 1970s this was a unique initiative.”
Gerry Badger: Another Country, British Documentary Photography Since 1945, pp. 115 & 156 (Thames & Hudson, 2022)
It was in my Moss Side studio that I developed the template for my subsequent practice, recording and communicating people's stories, their motivations and triumphs, the ups and downs of changing circumstances.
The years passed and I made increasing use of the tape recorder. In this way many of my pictures discovered the talkies. Some recordings I made at the same time as I took the photographs. For others I waited years. This site is where everything comes together.
Galleries
The Daniel Meadows Archive
For the benefit of researchers who intend visiting the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford to access the archive...
I have included, at the foot of relevant pages in the Photographs gallery, links connecting pictures here with their source material in the Bodleian.
To access the Daniel Meadows Archive in person you will need a Bodleian Reader Card.
Apply for a Bodleian Reader Card
Familiarise yourself with the work by sampling my annotated catalogue of the negative files (881 KB .pdf download).
When you have chosen the items you want to view, you should make your request and also schedule a time and date for your visit by emailing: specialcollections.enquiries
@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
In the News
The Shop on Greame Street 1972
EXISTENCE Issue 8 — Autumn/Winter 2024, features eight pages of Moss Side portraits by Daniel Meadows from 1972…
The Workers Gallery, reviewed
Reliving The Past by Ben Woolhead. Inside exhibition JUNE STREET SALFORD 1973 with Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr…
Impressions Gallery: Artist Talk
Audio recording of Daniel Meadows’ talk to a packed house in Bradford, on 12 October, is now available…
‘BOOK OF THE ROAD’: Book of the Month
“I was trying to find out what kind of Britain I was living in.” Daniel Meadows interviewed for the BJP by Dalia Al-Dujaili…