Influenced by Walker
Evans, William Eggleston
and the Bechers, Graham established
his reputation with colour photographs that portrayed
contemporary Britain in an objective, documentary style.
An early series House Portraits (1979-80) concentrated
on English council housing. He followed this with a study
of the service stations and cafes that line the Great
North Road.
In 1986 he published Beyond Caring, depicting
Social Security offices across Britain. The series examined the
degradation that accompanied the high unemployment and harsh economic
conditions of the Thatcher era. Graham has described the series
as showing places ‘where economic decisions and human lives
meet head on’. He then moved on to make Troubled Land
(1987), a study of Northern Ireland, followed by work in Europe
and Japan, and most recently photographs of near-painterly graffiti
in public toilets.
