Mick Hartley

I don't know what it is about Hull but it did attract the photographers, especially in the Seventies and Eighties when the fishing industry was in decline. I've featured Peter Marshall (twice) and Sean Plunkett here, as well as a few shots from John Bentley in Yorkshire. Now here's Alec Gill, whose photos have been brought together in The Alec Gill Hessle Road Photo Archive 1971-1987.

This book is a celebration and exploration of the photographic study of one road and its community in the port city of Kingston upon Hull. Located in the northeast of England, Hull, as it’s commonly known, sits at the heart of the UK’s historic fishing culture.

Alec Gill took his first photograph of Hull's Hessle Road community in 1971. He drew up a boundary map and stuck to it conscientiously, taking photographs in the same area on his Rolleicord twin-lens reflex camera over a 15-year period.

Over 200 images are presented alongside archival material such as Alec's camera and notebooks, setting the work in its historical context. His depiction of the once vibrant working-class neighbourhood during the decline of its fishing trade and a period of mass housing demolition witnesses the changing landscape over time and is a warm representation of a community that deserves to be more widely recognised. The photographs tap into the ever-hopeful attitude of Hessle Roaders despite the chaotic situation they found themselves in.

[Images © Alec Gill]

That's the man himself in the first shot.

On the second photo:

I saw these women leaving Marr’s fish-processing factory in Hull one Friday lunchtime in December 1977, wearing headscarves and carrying shopping bags, their white overalls underneath their coats, after a morning of filleting and packing fish. I expect many of them were thinking about their Christmas shopping, but who knows? I liked the reflection in the puddles, the row of chimney stacks behind, even though I had to stand in the mud to get the shot. Looking back, I can see how it relates to the whole history of Hessle Road, which was the beating heart of Hull’s fishing industry.