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...
At the foot of pages in the Photographs Gallery you will find links connecting images with their source material in the Bodleian.
View annotated sample pages from my catalogue (881 KB .pdf download).
To access the Daniel Meadows Archive in person you will need a Bodleian Reader Card.
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
‘Shuttles, Steam and Soot’
Fifty years on, photographer Daniel Meadows has been working with Four Corners gallery to recreate the original exhibition…
The Guardian
Between 1975 and 1980, Daniel Meadows documented cotton mills in north-east Lancashire before they closed down. Exhibition…
Unlikely 50-year friendship that started in a mill
Exhibition SHUTTLES, STEAM AND SOOT. BBC online report by Jayne McCubbin…
‘Shuttles, Steam and Soot’ on BBC TV
Exhibition opening at Four Corners in Bethnal Green is marked with a video piece by Jayne McCubbin…