Stephen Gill

Gill described this period of working as walking away from photography or almost starting again, putting content first and technique second whilst aiming to also work with photography’s weaknesses rather than its descriptive strengths.

Gill did not want to undermine photography’s strengths, however there was a new understanding that straight descriptive photography was not always able to grasp and convey all ideas.

Stephen Gill has learnt this: to haunt the places that haunt him. His photo-accumulations demonstrate a tender vision factored out of experience; alert, watchful, not overeager, wary of that mendacious conceit, ‘closure’. There is always flow, momentum, the sense of a man passing through a place that delights him. A sense of stepping down, immediate engagement, politic exchange. Then he remounts the bicycle and away. Loving retrievals, like a letter to a friend, never possession… What I like about Stephen Gill is that he has learnt to give us only as much as we need, the bones of the bones of the bones…

An obsession with this part of London lasted over ten years and led to many different series including – Hackney Wick, Archaeology in Reverse, Warming Down, Buried, Off Ground, A Series of Disappointments, Talking to Ants and Best Before End. Gill felt that such local concerns had international significance.

It was later announced that the area Gill had been extensively photographing would be redeveloped for the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics.

In the 2005 series Buried, he made photographs in Hackney Wick and took the C-type prints back to the area and buried them in the ground. The prints were left up to seven to ten days with the hope that the place itself would leave its mark and the spirit of the place would be felt in the final work. He saw this as collaboration with place.

Books are a key aspect to Gill's practice. He founded his own publishing imprint, Nobody Books, in 2005, "to exercise maximum control over the publication process of his books" and "to make the book a finished expression of the photographs, rather than just a shell to house them in". Most books were produced using offset printing, though he often experiments with a hands-on, tactile approach, including materials and techniques such as lino cut printing, letter press printing, mono prints, spray paint and rubber stamps. On occasion, entire books are manufactured and assembled in his studio by himself and his assistant Richard, who also distribute the books. His books have received wide international acclaim. Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2010, said "In Britain, Stephen Gill is perhaps the best-known contemporary self-published photographer". In 2011, PHotoEspaña awarded Stephen Gill’s imprint Nobody "Outstanding Publishing House of the Year" award.

Jon Ronson, writing in 2004 about Field Studies, was reminded of the Observer's Books:

Until 2003 his work mostly had a descriptive and typographical approach towards the subjects. Eight of his photo studies made between 1997 and 2003 were assembled and published as chapters in a book called Field Studies in 2004, which also toured as an exhibition.

In January 2003 Gill bought a Bakelite 1960s box camera made by Coronet for 50 pence at Hackney Wick Sunday market, near where he lived. The camera had a plastic lens, and it lacked focus and exposure controls.

After working mainly in black and white from 1984, his practice since the mid 1990s was mostly in colour.

Stephen Gill (born 1971) is a British experimental, conceptual and documentary photographer, whose work has been exhibited internationally along with his books that are a key aspect to Gill’s practice.

Gill was born in 1971 in Bristol, UK. He became interested in photography in his early childhood, thanks to his father and Stephen's growing interest in birds, insects and initial obsession with collecting bits of pond life to inspect under his microscope. In 1982 Gill's father, a keen photographer, taught him to process film and print his own pictures in their attic darkroom. In 1985, while still at school, he worked for a local, Bristol-based photography company, copying and restoring old photographs; and helping to make family portraits. Between 1988 and 1991 after leaving school, he worked in an one-hour Photo Lab in Bedminster Bristol. In 1992, he enrolled in the photography foundation course at Filton College in Bristol. In 1994, Gill moved from Bristol to London where he worked at the Magnum Photos agency as a member of staff in the archive, assisting photographers and processing black and white films, first as an intern and then in 1995 full-time. In 1997, he left Magnum to work full-time on his own projects. He lived and worked in Hackney, East London, until 2014. In March 2014, he set up a studio in South Sweden where he now lives with his family.