Stephen Shakeshaft - Liverpool People...

Last week I went to the see the work of photographer Stephen Shakeshaft which is currently being displayed at the National Conservation Centre Liverpool. It showed 70 of his photographs since the 1960's including award-winning images alongside unpublished ones. They featured a range of local personalities as well as major stars in their everyday surroundings. Shakeshaft, the former picture editor for local Liverpool papers, is renowned for his spur of the moment images which seem to capture a world which is similar and yet different to our own.

"It is a case of looking left and looking right and not just straight ahead. As a press photographer I like to be at the back waiting for the moment because you only get one chance to go for your picture and get back to meet the edition deadline."

All of his images feature people from all corners of society around the region going about their daily lives. The thing that struck me about his images the most was the sadness that it would be almost impossible to capture images like this today. Nobody would be able to get away with photographing unknown children playing innocently in the street without getting in trouble!

"Much of my work involved sport and news stories but there were often quieter periods when I might see an everyday scene making a great picture. The passing years have added to the atmosphere of these images."

There are eye opening stories mixed in with everyday scenes. From happy children playing in the city centre fountain, to images of people being evacuated from their homes, the images capture evocative stories from the past few decades and show great social change.

I really enjoyed looking at these images. It isn't very often that you can see a photograph and feel that you really understand the people's emotions and know the story that is unfolding around them. I loved the mix of humorous pictures woven in with life changing moments in the lives of the people they featured.

"We call them photographs but they are also history; telling of men, women and children and their part in passing events. Once the button on the camera has been pushed those people are given a kind of immortality, for the camera is a third eye adding permanence to the sight it sees."