Skins

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What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer, so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing.”–Shane Meadows (Director of award-winning film This Is England).

Gavin Watson “One image can change the history of anything” – Gavin Watson

However, having a camera in his hand clearly shaped how he navigated his teenage years. “I wouldn’t say I hid behind my photography but it definitely helped me as a shy person,” he explains. He also mentions its role in helping his dyslexia as well as how it gave him a channel to process his teenage frustration: “Instead of just being angry, I did something with it and expressed it.” Images by Gavin Watson from Oh! What Fun We Had Images by Gavin Watson from Oh! What Fun We Had First published in 1994, Gavin Watson’s inimitable publication Skins is one of the most renowned documentations of British sub-culture to date. Beginning his career aged fourteen after impulsively purchasing a camera at Woolworth’s, Watson’s photographs have inspired films, exhibited globally and most importantly, been shared between the people who stood before his lens three decades ago as a reminder of their glory days. Intimate, vibrant and full of character, his new book is a testament to the inclusiveness and diversity that skinhead culture was actually born of, demystifying the stereotypes that skins have struggled to shake off since. Though it wasn’t specifically his intention, the book naturally helps to counter the Neo-Nazi rhetoric it has come to be associated with, and he insists vehemently that real skinhead culture – the kind he experienced growing up – is a world away from the depiction fuelled by mainstream media. Skins by Gavin Watson is arguably the single most important record of ’70s skinhead culture in Britain. Rightly celebrated as a true classic of photobook publishing, the book is now reissued in a high-quality new edition under close supervision from the photographer.While there is little doubt that North Americans, especially Canadians as part of the British Commonwealth, were exposed to skinhead subculture in the late 1960s and during the initial resurgence of this movement in 1978, it did not take hold as a youth cult in the United States until the arrival of punk. Watson first encounted the Two-tone movement – which fuses ska, punk, and new wave – when he was 14, when he caught Madness on TV in 1979. 40 years on, Watson has come full circle with his new book Oh! What Fun We Had (Damiani), which launches at Donlon Books tonight and features never-before-seen photographs chronicling the rough-hewn kids who transformed skinhead culture into a global phenomenon. EJ: I wanted to ask you about one image in particular called Skinny Jim because it’s become one of your most iconic photographs, what was the story behind it?

Gavin Watson Camera Press | Photographers | Gavin Watson

Punk lent itself to violence through its embrace of aggressive music and teenage angst. Skinheads reflected this new influence by combining the exaggerated imagery of the original skinhead style with punk. For Watson, the presence of skins in such communities defies the skewed perception of the subculture as a breeding ground for white nationalism. “It goes against the narrative so hard,” he explains. “It just goes to show that [being a] skinhead’s not about race, it’s about a working-classness, a comradery, and that is universal. That’s why, whenever there’s a strong working-class culture – regardless of religion – you’ll find people listening to ska music and you’ll find people dressed as skinheads.” Until a few years ago Gavin's images had been held within underground cult status, with his work being brought into the media by Shane Meadows after images from ‘Skins’ Gavin's first book were used as the inspiration and muse for the award winning film This is England. The second wave arrived in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These skinheads differed from the first generation, in that they were not influenced as much by mod as they were by the growing punk and 2Tone Ska scenes in London. What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer, so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing.” –Shane Meadows (Director of award-winning film This Is England).It’s incredible that [the far-right] could take something that was so inclusive and weaponise it to divide people’ – Gavin Watson In England, there were two waves of the skinhead cult. From its inception, the skinhead subculture was largely based around music. The first group appeared in the late 1960s as an offshoot of the mod subculture and largely died out by 1972. Watson and his friends were part of a concentrated, local community of skins with its own particular identity. “The council estate over the road was sort of the boundary. Our town was tiny. Our minds were tiny as well,” he says. “The skinheads in Aylesbury would be very different from the skinheads 15 miles away. It was very insular until we went to gigs and then you’d meet up with people.” The photographs make it look like a movie, but it wasn’t! It was boring and mundane.” Life for photographer Gavin Watson wasn’t a crazy whirlwind growing up, in spite of what his immense photographic archive suggests. He and his friends would do “what most teenage boys from 14 to 18 would be doing in a rural council estate…. We’d hang out, listen to music, and obsess about girls and relationships, and where our life is going to go, and what we were going to be doing at the weekend.” But it’s in these moments where the magic lies.

Skins - ACC Art Books UK

The growth of the right-wing National Front and its recruitment of youth merely increased the amount of conflict present in the skinhead subculture. Punk shows and Ska shows were marred by skinhead violence. Even American newspapers covered the race riots that exploded in London in 1981. Northern soul was a music and dance movement that grew out of the British mod scene in northern England in the late 1960s, largely inspired by the faster tempo and darker sounds of mid-60s American soul music. Records emerging from the Northern Soul scene became known as ‘stompers’ for their soulful vocals and heavy beats. My pictures went unseen until years after when they were discovered in a box amongst thousands at a community darkroom facility which I used to make prints. They were selected for a book about youth culture. And that’s when it all started, my first book was published and I was part of a street style exhibition in the Victoria & Albert Museum. But I wasn’t prepared for any form of success, it all went over my head. Over the years, Watson has insisted that he doesn’t feel sentimentally attached to his photographs, but if his work isn’t close to his heart then perhaps it’s simply too close for comfort. “I literally had no involvement in the editing [of the new book], because it’s so personal,” he clarifies. “And if someone pissed me off at 16, they’re not going in my book. I know it’s petty. So that’s why I don’t edit stuff. Because other people see things that I’ll never see.” Instead, his friend Rini Giannaki took on the hefty task of editing the book, which features images that had been carefully archived over the years by his father. Skins by Gavin Watson has been argued as being ‘the single most important record’ of 1970s skinhead culture in Britain, who have possibly been one of the most reviled yet misunderstood of the nation’s youth subcultures.” — Daily MailAt the age of 14, Watson began photographing his brother, Neville, and his group of friends, who all grew up at the forefront of their local skinhead scene in High Wycombe. Watson’s work had no specific intention or motive behind it –“I’ve got tens of thousands of pictures that I took for no reason whatsoever”– other than simply tracing a period of pure friendship, era-defining style and real life. What’s crazy to me is I took so many pictures,” Watson says on the phone from his London studio. “I couldn’t afford to do it. No one ever paid me to do it. No one ever saw the pictures. I just took them for no real reason, except that I enjoyed taking them.” Nothing has changed. It’s got a lot more solidified. I used to feel isolated about how much bullshit was out there that we saw through at an early age. We had to rebel. I’m glad the next generation woke up and started to piss off these people in power – it’s beautiful!”

Skins and Punks by Gavin Watson | Music | The Guardian

Skinsby Gavin Watson is arguably the single most important record of ’70s skinhead culture in Britain. Rightly celebrated as a true classic of photobook publishing, the book is now reissued in a high-quality new edition under close supervision from the photographer. Early northern soul fashion included strong elements of classic Mod style, including button-down Ben Sherman shirts, blazers with centre vents and an unusual numbers of buttons, and brogue shoes. Later northern soul dancers began wearing lighter, loose fitting clothes for easier movement on the dance floor. This included high waisted baggy Oxford trousers and sports vests with leather-soled shoes.I didn’t want to be a rebel; I wanted to be normal. I was a shy, sensitive child that wanted to be an artist, but I just felt I didn’t have much of a choice in the environment I was growing up in, which was extremely violent. I didn’t want the pictures to show that. I never photographed any fighting or the grief that poverty brings. I didn’t want to photograph the abuse and the violence. It was part of my everyday life. Why would you expose your friends’ darkest secrets? EJ: That’s amazing. I want to touch on music again briefly because it’s such an integral part of your work…