John Bulmer was a pioneer of color photography in the early 1960s working for the Sunday Times Magazine from the very first issue till the 1970s

John Bulmer’s superb photographs were taken at a time when the North was undergoing a vast transformation. The collapse of traditional industries that had been the wealth creators of the Industrial Revolution was deeply affecting communities throughout the region; from the Black Country and Potteries, through Greater Manchester up to the coalfields and shipyards of the North East and Glasgow.
The hard times etched on the faces of John’s subjects told of a life of struggle framed against an often bleak industrial background. These were the people forgotten as the ‘Swinging Sixties’ changed the cultural landscape. Ironically, the first photographs were taken in 1960, the year Coronation Street was first screened with its own take on Northern life.