Peter Campbell (1937-2011), who took these photos of 1960s London, was first and foremost a typographer, and only occasionally worked as a photographer in a professional capacity. His longest-standing professional association was with the London Review of Books, for which he was the resident designer from its founding in 1979 until his death in 2011. Each fortnight from 1996 onwards, Peter did a cover illustration for the LRB. It was a job he loved, noting: “To have been asked to write, “draw and design for the paper over the years has been my great, my absurd, good fortune.”
He was also responsible for commissioning the photographic covers of the LRB throughout the 1980s, usually calling on photographers he knew (including Chris Killip, Homer Sykes and David King) when a portrait or reportage was needed. On a few occasions they were unavailable, he would step in.
“Composing pictures is making things look as though they have been arranged. But if they look too arranged, if they look too much like other pictures, there is no fun in it. Same with snapshots.”
– Peter Campbell
Via: Buy Peters pictures of 1960s London at Cafe Royal Books.
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