#529 "Don't ever lose these pictures"

#529 "Don't ever lose these pictures"

From The Photowalk by Neale James

May 1, 2026 · 1h 30m · Episode 529

About this episode

Neale James interviews photographer Fran May about her impactful black-and-white work capturing a bygone Britain.

Today I feature Fran May, a British photographer whose black-and-white work from the 1970s captures a version of Britain that has largely vanished: northern towns, street markets, pubs, kids playing out, and Brick Lane in London. What makes the photographs remarkable is how unforced they feel. Nothing is staged, nothing is trying too hard. They are just honest slices of ordinary life, made by someone who came to England from the wide open spaces of Canada and Hawaii and found something worth documenting in the terraced streets and shop fronts of a country that still had one foot firmly in the post-war years. Fran worked under the mentorship of Bill Brandt, and it shows in the seriousness with which she approached the everyday. There's a touch of street about the show because Valerie Jardin returns for another edition of Teach Me Street. The mailbag is as wonderfully unpredictable as ever: Margaret Ellison in New Zealand writes about losing her way photographically and finding it again through writing; Robin Taylor-Hunt, Maurice Webster and Colin Mayer send postcards from India, Venice and what appears to be a particularly chilly beach in Blackpool, respectively; and Gene Westberg…

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