In 2025 Photo North Festival #6 exhibited a selection from the beginnings of Simon Hill’s The North Revisited. One year on we are delighted to welcome him back with an extended selection at PNF#7.
When The Sunday Times Magazine commissioned photojournalist John Bulmer FRPS to document life in the industrial centres of the north of England, it was a time when northern society and culture was undergoing a vast transformation. Traditional industries - coal, steel, textiles, engineering - had been the wealth creators of the Industrial Revolution but they were now in a rapid and relentless decline. The hard times etched on the faces of John’s subjects told of a life of incredible struggle and hardship framed against a bleak industrial background. These were people forgotten as the ‘Swinging Sixties’ changed the cultural landscape of Britain.
On 28 March 1965 the magazine published a Special Issue devoted to ‘The North’ and it was John’s photographs that appeared on the cover and across 13 pages. John later reflected on the significance of this Special Issue, “I was very used to working in colour, but also very aware that no serious professional had photographed the industrial North in colour before.”
Marking the sixtieth anniversary of The Sunday Times Magazine 1965 Special Issue on 'The North', in 2025 Arts Council England (ACE) provided the major funding for a year-long project in which editorial and documentary photographer Simon Hill HonFRPS built on the work of John Bulmer FRPS, whose evocative images of the north of England made in the 1960s have proved to be a cornerstone of British documentary photography.
At PNF#7 Simon will be exhibiting a personal selection of around 20 images from his project in anticipation of the book of the project being published by Image & Reality, in May 2026, as a companion volume to John's recently republished 'The North’.
This Arts Council England funded project was managed by Harriet Kendal-Greene.
