Seacole: Chris Killip

Between 1983 and 1984 Chris Killip visited a small community several times in order to document their activities. When Killip arrived at Lynemouth in the north east side of the UK he discovered a close knit, hardworking community that was making a living from collecting the coal found along the coastline and selling it.

Killips images focus not only on the manual labor but also the families, the children and the life style that they had built for them selves.The images depict relationships and just how reliant the community is on one another. The depictions in Seacole portray the relationship the workers have with their horses and the roles that they each play as they carry out the miserable and laboring work.

Some of the images which i felt were interesting where the ones which looked away from the action and focused back onto the families with depictions of the workers spending time with their children along with the establishing images of hovels and caravans in which they lived. As poor as they may have been the images of the children are all very positive showing the children performing for the camera and laughing as they do so.

The diverse range of relationships within this photo book are what bind it all together and the story of the seacole has been clearly demonstrated.

Further more i find this work to be of great inspiration for my own project that is to be based around relationships. If i were not to focus on workers then their are still some fantastic aspects of the work that i could translate into almost any documentary piece.