Great Britain. Image and Exploration: Some Directions in British Photography 1980/85.

Exhibition catalogue for an exhibition at The Photographers Gallery, London 21 June - 7 September 1985. Essays by Alex Noble and Ian Jeffrey. Curated by Jonathan Bayer and Alex Noble. About 80 photos by 70 British photographers, with exhibition checklist, biographical notes, and photographers’ statements. Photographers include:  Nick Adler; Michael Allott; Richard Barclay; Chris Belcher; Noel Brown; David Butterworth; Helen Chadwick; John Charity; Chris Colclough; Matthew Conduit; Berris Conolly; Jim Cooke; Mary Cooper; Chris Craske; and Christine Duyt, et al. Wraps, 108 pages, near fine with small ding at top edge of front cover. Duotone and color illustrations.  Summary:

Image and Exploration: Some Directions in British Photography 1980/85 is the exhibition catalog for a major survey show held at the Photographers’ Gallery in London. The publication serves as an important historical index of British photography during a transitional period. The volume documents a radical shift away from traditional commercial and photojournalistic formulas toward highly personal, experimental, and conceptually driven practices.

• Spotlighting a New Generation: The publication serves as a launchpad for seventy young, emerging, or previously overlooked British photographers. Most of the featured artists were either self-taught or had recently graduated from art colleges, bringing fresh, innovative approaches to the medium.

• The "Landmarks" Section: This extensive category explores how humans interact with and alter urban, rural, and domestic landscapes. It maps out a shift in British landscape photography, transitioning from romantic views of nature to critical, modern representations of space—drawing influence from the American "New Topographics" movement. Notable featured photographers in this section include Paul Highnam, Berris Conolly, and Helen Harris.

• Diverse Curatorial Categories: To organize the broad array of work without rigidly pigeonholing the artists, the catalog divides the photography into themed segments:

  • Landmarks (environment and urban structures)

  • Objective Subjects (still-life studies and examinations of the human form)

  • Social Commentaries (probing cultural and political realities of the decade)

  • New Colour Photography (capturing the rise of color as a serious documentary medium)

• A Shift Toward Alienation and Irony: Many of the documented images—such as those by Paul Reas, Chris Colclough, and Mark Warner—reflect a pervasive sense of urban alienation, consumerism, and the physical decay of industrial Britain.

• Critical Essays: Writing by influential photography historians and co-curators places these works in context, explaining how these photographers embraced ambiguity, subjective perspectives, and poetic "uncertainty" in contrast to the rigid messaging of commercial media.