In 1988, Chris Killip published In Flagrante, a book documenting the “de-industrial revolution” in northeast England in the 1970s and ’80s. With humor and intimacy, Killip depicted communities struggling with the decline of the British shipbuilding and mining industries. In the years since, the book has been called a “masterpiece of photojournalism,” and in 2015, Steidl republished it as In Flagrante Two, redesigned and including a slightly different selection of images. A new show at the Getty Museum, “Now Then: Chris Killip and the Making of In Flagrante,” explores the work Killip made for In Flagrante, expanding on the 50 photographs in the original book to include more than 100 images along with maquettes, contact sheets and work prints, which reveal Killip’s editing and working process. The show also presents images from two other series Killip made in the area, which were partially included in In Flagrante. “Seacoal” focuses on a coastal village where residents made a subsistence living by collecting coal that washed ashore from a nearby mine (Killip published a book of the work 2012). “Skinningrove” looks at an isolated village where the closure of ironworks and a steel-rolling mill forced many people to work as fishermen. On view until August 13, the show offers a wider view of Killip’s dark and poetic study of decline and resilience in the North of England, and offers a behind the scenes look at the making of an iconic body of work.

Related Stories:
Photographing Where London Ends
A 1980s Study of Declining American Cities
Why Gerhard Steidl Is a Book Publishing Master (for PDN subscribers; login required)