Handsworth Self Portrait by Derek Bishton, Brian Homer, and John Reardon was made between August and October 1979 on Grove Lane in Handsworth, Birmingham, where the trio ran their Sidelines agency; it records residents outside 81 Grove Lane as they photographed themselves against a plain backdrop.
Handsworth had become home to African-Caribbean and South Asian communities while also being framed in mainstream media as a shorthand for crime and decline. Bishton, Homer, and Reardon—each at an early or transitional stage in their careers, moving between journalism, design, and documentary practice—responded by building a public, participatory portrait archive that asked residents to choose how they would appear.
That shift in authorship is visible in the pictures’ range of self-presentation. Because the pop-up studio sat on a main shopping route—opposite a fish and chip shop, a butcher, and a betting shop—people often stepped in as they were, sometimes holding skateboards, shopping bags, or pets. Participants face the camera with gestures that move from formal stillness to spontaneous action: friends lean together, couples kiss, children perform, musicians dance. The plain white background removes the street as a narrative cue, so attention falls on clothing, posture, expression, and the social bonds between sitters, while the visible cable release—often held in hand—signals that timing and pose were decided by the subjects themselves.
The setup was deliberately simple and street-facing. Using a motor-driven camera fixed to a tripod, the photographers set focus and framing, then handed a long cable release to each participant to trigger the shutter; the motor drive advanced film quickly enough for multiple exposures in a session. The portraits were shot on black-and-white 35mm film under available daylight, with light softened when needed by a tracing-paper diffuser. In the days after each weekend session, the film was developed and prints were made; participants later identified their frames on contact sheets and received a free print.
Initially experienced as a local experiment that drew more than 500 participants, the project later entered broader photographic and academic conversations about representation, and collaboration. It circulated through early exhibitions and publications, was revisited in anniversary presentations (including Handsworth Self Portrait: 40 Years On at Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham, 23 March–2 June 2019), and appeared in Tate Britain’s The 80s: Photographing Britain (21 November 2024–5 May 2025); it has been preserved through institutional collecting, including holdings at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and later archival acquisition by the Bodleian Library.
