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☀️ Bank holiday plans...

📸 Village is a Global World, 1994 © Jindřich Štreit

📷 Join us! InSide: documentary photographers meet-up!

InSide is a monthly space for photographers who care about documentary. A place to share work in progress, talk things through, ask questions, and connect with others navigating the same practice. It’s relaxed, supportive, and shaped by the people in the room.

**PLEASE NOTE, DUE TO THE BANK HOLIDAYS IN MAY, THIS MONTH'S MEETING WILL BE ON A TUESDAY NOT A MONDAY AS USUAL**

Next meeting
🗓 Tuesday 26th May, 2026
⏰ 6–8pm (please arrive a few minutes early to be shown to meeting room)
📍 Meet in the quad outside the Northumberland Building, City Campus, Northumbria University, NE1 8SG

First half of the meeting: selected photographers will share their work.
Second half: news, opportunities, and building projects to work on as a community. Please bring anything you'd like to share with the group!

👉 Let us know you're coming by following the link in bio to, "InSide: Documentary Photography Community".

📣 Calling all volunteers!

We're on the look out for helping hands this coming Friday and Saturday (22nd - 23rd May) to help in the AmberSide Collection Archive.

If you have any time and would like to help you can email us at side.gallery@amber-online.com

Please use the subject line: "AmberSide Volunteer May 2026" and let us know your availability - whether it is a few hours or a full day!

EXCLUSIVE NEW FEATURE ONLINE 🖤
SHIELDS STORIES: THE AMBER COLLECTIVE’S NORTH SHIELDS RESIDENCY (1986–1991) – PART I

A fascinating new deep-dive into one of the most important creative chapters in North Shields history is now live.

Written by Robert Hollands, this powerful feature explores why the legendary Amber Film & Photography Collective chose North Shields as the focus of its artistic residency during the late 1980s — documenting working-class life, industrial change, community identity and the people of the town through film and photography.

From the Fish Quay and ferry crossings to social change, mining communities and the evolving identity of the North East, this feature captures a moment in time that still echoes through North Shields today.

Featuring rare insights into:
• Amber’s move from Newcastle to North Shields
• the changing face of working-class communities
• the impact of industrial decline and regeneration
• the stories, people and places that shaped the residency
• the roots of films including Dream On and In Fading Light

This is Part I of a special three-part series.

Read now online.

📸 The Amber Collective at the Side workshop, 1987

#ILoveNorthShields #NorthShields #AmberCollective #SideGallery #NorthEastCulture

🎤 Taken alongside Bruce Rae’s Shipbuilding on the Tyne, these photographs show another part of the same lives.

The yards mattered. The work mattered. But people were not only defined by industry. These images take us after work, where singers took the mic, people joined in, and a night out had its own rhythm.

They sit alongside the shipbuilding photographs as part of the same social world: work, home, streets, music, humour and community.

📸 Contact sheets taken alongside "Bruce Rae: Shipbuilding on the Tyne", early 1980s © Bruce Rae (via AmberSide Collection)

🎤 Taken alongside Bruce Rae’s Shipbuilding on the Tyne, these photographs show another part of the same lives.

The yards mattered. The work mattered. But people were not only defined by industry. These images take us after work, where singers took the mic, people joined in, and a night out had its own rhythm.

They sit alongside the shipbuilding photographs as part of the same social world: work, home, streets, music, humour and community.

📸 Contact sheets taken alongside "Bruce Rae: Shipbuilding on the Tyne", early 1980s © Bruce Rae (via AmberSide Collection)

⚓ May 2026 marks 53 years since the oil tanker World Unicorn was launched from Swan Hunter’s Wallsend shipyard.

Amber’s film Launch, released the following year, documents the construction and launch of the vessel at a time when shipbuilding shaped work, streets, skylines and family life along the Tyne. Made on a budget of just £400, the film creates not only an authentic portrait of shipyard labour, but also the way in which the tanker dominates the social landscape.

Writing for BFI Screen Online, Martin Hunt describes how Launch shifts "subtly undercuts the established news treatment of such events, marginalising the VIPs that are conventionally the focus of attention, and shifting the political significance to the representation of labour and community."

More than half a century on, the film remains a record of a working river and the communities built around it.

🎬 Rent Launch (Amber Films, 10 mins, 1974) by following the link in bio to: "Rent: Launch (1974)"

🥳 Tonight we’re doing another congratulations to a photographer who calls our region home. Shout out to @markduffyphoto who has three new works on display now at @peckham24photo.

Mark’s work invites viewers to participate actively in scrutinising the construction of British politics.

📸 Pictured “The Parliament of Empty Gestures VII”

🥳 Tonight we’re doing another congratulations to a photographer who calls our region home. Shout out to @markduffyphoto who has three new works on display now at @peckham24photo.

Mark’s work invites viewers to participate actively in scrutinising the construction of British politics.

📸 Pictured “The Parliament of Empty Gestures VII”

🏠 Today is International Day of Families, a UN day focused on how social and economic conditions affect family life.

Richard Grassick’s Unclear Family was made during the 1990s, when politicians in the UK were promoting narrow ideas about what family should look like through campaigns such as “back to basics”. The project pushes against that by photographing family as people were actually living it.

Made across County Durham, the Czech Republic, France and Germany, the series shows how family life is shaped by work, class, care, place and change. Grassick photographs people in homes, kitchens, shops and streets, staying close to the everyday realities that hold people together.

Explore more from the project by following the link in bio to: "Richard Grassick: Unclear Family (Solo Show)"

📸 Unclear Family, 1990s © Richard Grassick

🏠 Today is International Day of Families, a UN day focused on how social and economic conditions affect family life.

Richard Grassick’s Unclear Family was made during the 1990s, when politicians in the UK were promoting narrow ideas about what family should look like through campaigns such as “back to basics”. The project pushes against that by photographing family as people were actually living it.

Made across County Durham, the Czech Republic, France and Germany, the series shows how family life is shaped by work, class, care, place and change. Grassick photographs people in homes, kitchens, shops and streets, staying close to the everyday realities that hold people together.

Explore more from the project by following the link in bio to: "Richard Grassick: Unclear Family (Solo Show)"

📸 Unclear Family, 1990s © Richard Grassick

🏠 Today is International Day of Families, a UN day focused on how social and economic conditions affect family life.

Richard Grassick’s Unclear Family was made during the 1990s, when politicians in the UK were promoting narrow ideas about what family should look like through campaigns such as “back to basics”. The project pushes against that by photographing family as people were actually living it.

Made across County Durham, the Czech Republic, France and Germany, the series shows how family life is shaped by work, class, care, place and change. Grassick photographs people in homes, kitchens, shops and streets, staying close to the everyday realities that hold people together.

Explore more from the project by following the link in bio to: "Richard Grassick: Unclear Family (Solo Show)"

📸 Unclear Family, 1990s © Richard Grassick

🏠 Today is International Day of Families, a UN day focused on how social and economic conditions affect family life.

Richard Grassick’s Unclear Family was made during the 1990s, when politicians in the UK were promoting narrow ideas about what family should look like through campaigns such as “back to basics”. The project pushes against that by photographing family as people were actually living it.

Made across County Durham, the Czech Republic, France and Germany, the series shows how family life is shaped by work, class, care, place and change. Grassick photographs people in homes, kitchens, shops and streets, staying close to the everyday realities that hold people together.

Explore more from the project by following the link in bio to: "Richard Grassick: Unclear Family (Solo Show)"

📸 Unclear Family, 1990s © Richard Grassick

🏠 Today is International Day of Families, a UN day focused on how social and economic conditions affect family life.

Richard Grassick’s Unclear Family was made during the 1990s, when politicians in the UK were promoting narrow ideas about what family should look like through campaigns such as “back to basics”. The project pushes against that by photographing family as people were actually living it.

Made across County Durham, the Czech Republic, France and Germany, the series shows how family life is shaped by work, class, care, place and change. Grassick photographs people in homes, kitchens, shops and streets, staying close to the everyday realities that hold people together.

Explore more from the project by following the link in bio to: "Richard Grassick: Unclear Family (Solo Show)"

📸 Unclear Family, 1990s © Richard Grassick

🏠 Today is International Day of Families, a UN day focused on how social and economic conditions affect family life.

Richard Grassick’s Unclear Family was made during the 1990s, when politicians in the UK were promoting narrow ideas about what family should look like through campaigns such as “back to basics”. The project pushes against that by photographing family as people were actually living it.

Made across County Durham, the Czech Republic, France and Germany, the series shows how family life is shaped by work, class, care, place and change. Grassick photographs people in homes, kitchens, shops and streets, staying close to the everyday realities that hold people together.

Explore more from the project by following the link in bio to: "Richard Grassick: Unclear Family (Solo Show)"

📸 Unclear Family, 1990s © Richard Grassick

🏠 Today is International Day of Families, a UN day focused on how social and economic conditions affect family life.

Richard Grassick’s Unclear Family was made during the 1990s, when politicians in the UK were promoting narrow ideas about what family should look like through campaigns such as “back to basics”. The project pushes against that by photographing family as people were actually living it.

Made across County Durham, the Czech Republic, France and Germany, the series shows how family life is shaped by work, class, care, place and change. Grassick photographs people in homes, kitchens, shops and streets, staying close to the everyday realities that hold people together.

Explore more from the project by following the link in bio to: "Richard Grassick: Unclear Family (Solo Show)"

📸 Unclear Family, 1990s © Richard Grassick

🌊 David Cross’ "Play Boat, Westward Ho!" comes from his longform project "In Search of England / They Don’t Play Much Cricket Around Here Anymore", documenting contemporary England through colour and everyday landscape.

Cross grew up in Gloucester and discovered photography as a teenager before later founding the Centre for British Documentary Photography. Now living between the Forest of Dean and the North Devon coast, he describes Play Boat as symbolising “the ever changing coastline of Britain.”

Reflecting on the towns and coastline around Westward Ho!, he writes: “there is a transitory feeling yet in many ways they are constant... The coast has shaped me, taught me much about myself and the ecology of our little bit of the world.”

Feeling inspired by the places that have shaped you?
🔗 Share your images with us and take part in "MySide: Local Colour" by following the link in bio under "Open Calls".

📸 Play Boat, Westward Ho!, 2026 © David Cross

💙 This week is Mental Health Awareness Week (11–17 May 2026)

To reflect on the importance mental health awareness has on many people's lives, we're taking a look at "Letters from Ernestine K" by Stefan Dolfen was made inside a psychiatric institution in Bethel, Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Combining portraiture and fictionalised letters, the series explored how mental illness was seen, represented and experienced.

Dolfen spent extended time living and working within the community, building relationships with some of the women he photographed and developing the work through trust and collaboration. The series stays with the realities of institutional life and the people within it, resisting simplified ideas about illness, care and identity.

Explore more from the series by following the link in bio to: "Letters from Ernestine K"

If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, support, rights information and crisis resources can be found through organisations including Mind, access their resources via their website: www.mind.org.uk/information-support

📸 Letters from Ernestine K, 1980s-1990s © Stefan Dolfen

💙 This week is Mental Health Awareness Week (11–17 May 2026)

To reflect on the importance mental health awareness has on many people's lives, we're taking a look at "Letters from Ernestine K" by Stefan Dolfen was made inside a psychiatric institution in Bethel, Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Combining portraiture and fictionalised letters, the series explored how mental illness was seen, represented and experienced.

Dolfen spent extended time living and working within the community, building relationships with some of the women he photographed and developing the work through trust and collaboration. The series stays with the realities of institutional life and the people within it, resisting simplified ideas about illness, care and identity.

Explore more from the series by following the link in bio to: "Letters from Ernestine K"

If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, support, rights information and crisis resources can be found through organisations including Mind, access their resources via their website: www.mind.org.uk/information-support

📸 Letters from Ernestine K, 1980s-1990s © Stefan Dolfen

💙 This week is Mental Health Awareness Week (11–17 May 2026)

To reflect on the importance mental health awareness has on many people's lives, we're taking a look at "Letters from Ernestine K" by Stefan Dolfen was made inside a psychiatric institution in Bethel, Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Combining portraiture and fictionalised letters, the series explored how mental illness was seen, represented and experienced.

Dolfen spent extended time living and working within the community, building relationships with some of the women he photographed and developing the work through trust and collaboration. The series stays with the realities of institutional life and the people within it, resisting simplified ideas about illness, care and identity.

Explore more from the series by following the link in bio to: "Letters from Ernestine K"

If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, support, rights information and crisis resources can be found through organisations including Mind, access their resources via their website: www.mind.org.uk/information-support

📸 Letters from Ernestine K, 1980s-1990s © Stefan Dolfen

💙 This week is Mental Health Awareness Week (11–17 May 2026)

To reflect on the importance mental health awareness has on many people's lives, we're taking a look at "Letters from Ernestine K" by Stefan Dolfen was made inside a psychiatric institution in Bethel, Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Combining portraiture and fictionalised letters, the series explored how mental illness was seen, represented and experienced.

Dolfen spent extended time living and working within the community, building relationships with some of the women he photographed and developing the work through trust and collaboration. The series stays with the realities of institutional life and the people within it, resisting simplified ideas about illness, care and identity.

Explore more from the series by following the link in bio to: "Letters from Ernestine K"

If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, support, rights information and crisis resources can be found through organisations including Mind, access their resources via their website: www.mind.org.uk/information-support

📸 Letters from Ernestine K, 1980s-1990s © Stefan Dolfen

📣 The AmberSide Trust is looking for a new Treasurer.

This voluntary Trustee role will help oversee financial planning and support the future of the AmberSide Collection as we develop exhibitions, screenings and education work.

We welcome applicants with financial management experience, ideally in the charity or cultural sector.

🔗 For more info and how to apply follow the link in bio to: "Work With Us: Treasurer - The AmberSide Trust”

📦 Are you an independent creator?

We’re looking for new items for the Side online shop from photographers, publishers, printers, zine makers and other independent creators.

We’re particularly interested in independently produced work that sits alongside Side’s wider interests in photography, documentary culture, publishing and visual life.

Stock must already be produced and available for sale-or-return.

🛍️ To submit, send:
• an outline of what you want to sell
• images or links where possible
• RRP information

✉️ Email: side.gallery@amber-online.com
Subject line: Side Store: Independent Creator Stock Submission

📸 Shop Fronts, 1974 © Lambton Visual Aids (AmberSide Collection)

📦 Are you an independent creator?

We’re looking for new items for the Side online shop from photographers, publishers, printers, zine makers and other independent creators.

We’re particularly interested in independently produced work that sits alongside Side’s wider interests in photography, documentary culture, publishing and visual life.

Stock must already be produced and available for sale-or-return.

🛍️ To submit, send:
• an outline of what you want to sell
• images or links where possible
• RRP information

✉️ Email: side.gallery@amber-online.com
Subject line: Side Store: Independent Creator Stock Submission

📸 Shop Fronts, 1974 © Lambton Visual Aids (AmberSide Collection)