Think of Richard Davis’ photography, and you’ll probably think of Manchester. He took cinematic shots in striking black and white of the graffiti-strewn Hulme Crescents in the 1980s and 1990s. (That is, a sprawling Brutalist housing estate that became a squatter’s paradise and home to a wild array of artists, punks, hippies, students, and fringe characters.) Plus, he captured the sweaty, wide-eyed times of Madchester, photographed the city’s burgeoning comic talents like Steve Coogan and Caroline Aherne, along with devout Manchester United fans on matchdays.
But before Davis found himself capturing the lawless concrete jungle that was Hulme, he spent three years snapping the city he was born and raised in: Birmingham. “I don't often get a chance to talk about Birmingham because it's always about Manchester,” says Davis when we connect to look back over his early work — specifically from that era of 1985-1988. “But it was Birmingham that shaped my style. There's no way I could have just rocked up in Hulme, and did what I did straight away, without my years in Birmingham. It was already there in the work I’d done: the portraits, graffiti, politics, music, the black and white contrast, locations and patterns. I have so much love for Birmingham and it's a shame I don't often get a chance to chat about it.”
Davis was brought up in Northfield, with a childhood he describes as “very working class and sport dominated” and one that involved no understanding of, or exposure to, art. But as his mid-teens hit, he became music obsessed and studying was not his priority, so he left school at 16. “The school I went to was designed for kids to work at the Rover car factory at nearby Longbridge,” he recalls. “I wasn't having that.”
Aged 18, he moved into a shared house in Moseley in 1984 and began to take a keen interest in politics. “I was so anti-Tory and anti-Thatcher,” he recalls, with an intensity that suggests he still feels that way. Davis is a passionate speaker, who talks loudly and quickly and is prone to dropping in a good swear word to emphasise his points when needed.
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“It was fucking kicking off,” he continues, referring to the turmoil and class politics of the mid-1980s. “I felt society was split into two at the time. You had the yuppies and the anti-yuppies and it felt like you had to take sides. I don’t think things are as black and white now but it really did feel like we were completely outside of mainstream society.”
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