Dennis Morris started out photographing poverty-stricken Southall in the early Seventies. He was 14 when he ran away from his Hackney home to photograph Bob Marley and The Wailers who were touring Britain for the first time. Two years later, still only 16, Morris was appointed official photographer of the Sex Pistols in 1973 after Malcom McLaren had seen his pictures of Marley. Deemed too radical, Morris' extensive Southall reportage took almost 20 years to find a publisher, but his 1999 Southhall - Home From Home exhibition at the Tom Blau Gallery secured rave reviews. Morris' astonishingly intimate pictorial biography of Marley, which ran from 1973 until the musician's death in 1981, recently drew huge crowds in Proud Galleries.
Morris is currently showing Growing Up Black, a series of haunting, beautiful and candid shots of the life he led in as a black teenager in Seventies London. This year, Morris has been commissioned by Hackney Council to photograph the East End's traditional white working class community.
DENNIS MORRIS
WORK
The YR.1 Interview with Morris Morris talks about his approach to photography and some of his work - such as his time with Marley, the Sex Pistols and the Sikh community in London.
