Peter Cripps Photography

I have finally got hold of a reasonable quality film scanner (this one) and begun to scan a number of my old black and white negatives from some of my earliest forays into what I now know was street photography.

These images are from a trip to Blackpool taken in the summer of 1979. I was 21 at the time and did not really know that street photography was a thing or that it was something serious photographers devoted their lives too.

To be honest I was pretty aimless at this point in my life. My dad had died the previous year and I had just graduated with a mediocre degree in physics from the University of Birmingham. I had a job on offer which I was to start in September of that year but was not particularly fired up by the prospect of it. I had a desire to ‘do something’ with photography which I had been interested in for the previous five or so years. I had no idea where my interest really lay and even less idea how to make a career out of photography which I had a secret ambition to do.

So, in July 1979, I decided, on a bit of a whim, to take myself off to Blackpool for a few days with my newly purchased Nikkormat FT2 and two Nikon lenses (35mm and 135mm). This equipment is now sadly long gone but happily I have rediscovered the images I took and present a selection here.

Seeing these images from 45 years ago has been a very cathartic experience for me. Looking at all of these people, many who will no longer be here, makes me think about what lives they led and what successes and failures they had. It also makes me wonder what direction my life might have taken had I pressed ahead with my dream.

I did take the job and spent the next forty years working in the IT industry and my photography went on hold for many years. Happily I took it up again seriously in the early 2000s and, now I know more about what street photography actually is, am pursuing it with renewed vigour.