Chris Steele-Perkins, Richard Smith - The Teds (FIRST PRINTING) - 1979

"Everything shifts as you move, and different things come into focus at different points of your life, and you try to articulate that."
- Chris Steele-Perkins -

BRILLIANT, RARE FIRST BOOK by the famous Magnum photographer Chris Steele-Perkins.

A classic of British documentary photography - in the TRUE FIRST ORIGINAL ENGLISH PRINTING
(there were reprints later).

Vivid and absorbing book -
combining the images of Chris Steele‑Perkins with a text by Richard Smith, to tell a fascinating story that spans some three decades.

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In early 1954, on a late train from Southend, someone pulled the communication cord. The train ground to a halt. Light bulbs were smashed. Police arrested a gang dressed in Edwardian suits. In April two gangs, also dressed Edwardian-style, met after a dance. They were ready for action: bricks and sand-filled socks were used. Fifty-five youths were taken in for questioning. The following August Bank Holiday the first 'Best Dressed Ted Contest was held. The winner was a twenty-year-old greengrocers assistant. The Teddy Boy myth was born.

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Travelling Light. 1979. First edition, first printing.

Paperback (as issued). 205 x 280 mm. 118 pages. Photographs by Chris Steele-Perkins. Text by Richard Smith. Text in English.

Condition:
Inside fresh and flawless; clean with no marks and with no foxing. Outside with quite fresh covers and complete spine (a bit restored at the top), bumped and with creases at the top left corner of the front and at the top right corner of the rear side (both with no consequence for inside). Overall very good condition.

Fantastic, scarce book by great Magnum photographer Chris Steele-Perkins, a classic of the genre -
here in the scarce, true first printing from 1979 (!).

"Chris Steele-Perkins was born in 1947. At the age of two, he moved to England from Burma
with his father. Steele-Perkins attended the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he studied psychology while working for the student newspaper. He graduated with honors in 1970 and moved to London in 1971, where he worked as a freelance photographer.
While working in Britain, Steele-Perkins concentrated on areas concerned with urban poverty and subcultures. In 1975, he worked with EXIT, a collective dealing with social problems in British cities. This involvement culminated in the book Survival Programmes in 1982. In 1976, Steele-Perkins joined the Paris-based Viva agency. Following this, in 1979, he published his first solo book, The Teds. Concurrently that year, he edited the Arts Council of Great Britain’s book, About 70 Photographs.
After joining Magnum Photos in 1979 (he became a full member in 1983), Steele-Perkins began working extensively in economically developing nations—particularly, in Africa, Central America and Lebanon. He also continued to take photographs in Britain: The Pleasure Principle explores Britain in the 1980s. In 1992, he published Afghanistan, the result of four trips over four years. After marrying his second wife, Miyako Yamada, he embarked on a long-term photographic exploration of Japan, publishing Fuji in 2000. A highly personal diary of 2001, Echoes, was published in 2003. This was followed by the second of his Japanese books, Tokyo Love Hello, in March 2007. That same year, he published Northern Exposures, which documents the lives of people in the north-east of England where he spent his student days. In 2009, he released England, My England, which weaves together his native Britain from a photographer’s personal perspective.
Recently, Steele-Perkins has published two books: The Troubles (2021) and The New Londoners (2019). The Troubles is a collection of images that Steele-Perkins took in 1978 in Northern Ireland. The New Londoners celebrates London’s diversity through a series of family portraits captured by Steele-Perkins."
(from Magnum's website)