Skins

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EJ: I wanted to ask you about one image in particular called Skinny Jim because it’s become one of your most iconic photographs, what was the story behind it? Watson and his friends were part of a concentrated, local community of skins with its own particular identity. “The council estate over the road was sort of the boundary. Our town was tiny. Our minds were tiny as well,” he says. “The skinheads in Aylesbury would be very different from the skinheads 15 miles away. It was very insular until we went to gigs and then you’d meet up with people.” Though he didn’t often venture far from his estate growing up, he’s rubbed shoulders with skins further field, like New York, where “you were always welcome”. He also developed an interest in skins beyond the Western world. When he started receiving images from “hardcore, covered-in-tattoos skinheads” in Southeast Asia, he wanted to travel there and photograph the burgeoning scene, but he claims nobody was interested in the idea because it doesn’t conform to what skinhead culture is typically defined as. However, having a camera in his hand clearly shaped how he navigated his teenage years. “I wouldn’t say I hid behind my photography but it definitely helped me as a shy person,” he explains. He also mentions its role in helping his dyslexia as well as how it gave him a channel to process his teenage frustration: “Instead of just being angry, I did something with it and expressed it.” Images by Gavin Watson from Oh! What Fun We Had Images by Gavin Watson from Oh! What Fun We Had

Skins - ACC Art Books US Skins - ACC Art Books US

EJ: Skins has become a cultural artefact in its own right, at the time did you ever feel as if you were in the midst of capturing history? Over the years, Watson has insisted that he doesn’t feel sentimentally attached to his photographs, but if his work isn’t close to his heart then perhaps it’s simply too close for comfort. “I literally had no involvement in the editing [of the new book], because it’s so personal,” he clarifies. “And if someone pissed me off at 16, they’re not going in my book. I know it’s petty. So that’s why I don’t edit stuff. Because other people see things that I’ll never see.” Instead, his friend Rini Giannaki took on the hefty task of editing the book, which features images that had been carefully archived over the years by his father. What’s crazy to me is I took so many pictures,” Watson says on the phone from his London studio. “I couldn’t afford to do it. No one ever paid me to do it. No one ever saw the pictures. I just took them for no real reason, except that I enjoyed taking them.”EJ: There’s an ease to those captured that only comes from being a photographer rooted in a scene, what was your relationship like with the people you photographed? Until a few years ago Gavin's images had been held within underground cult status, with his work being brought into the media by Shane Meadows after images from ‘Skins’ Gavin's first book were used as the inspiration and muse for the award winning film This is England. Early northern soul fashion included strong elements of classic Mod style, including button-down Ben Sherman shirts, blazers with centre vents and an unusual numbers of buttons, and brogue shoes. Later northern soul dancers began wearing lighter, loose fitting clothes for easier movement on the dance floor. This included high waisted baggy Oxford trousers and sports vests with leather-soled shoes. Through no desire of his own, Watson eventually became known as one of the most prominent documenters of skinheads, his 1994 debut book Skins having served as primary source material for Shane Meadows’s iconic indie drama This Is England. Watson affirms that the film is more representative of his experience of the subculture than other on-screen portrayals, arguing that “there’s a political narrative with movies like American History X and Romper Stomper” that doesn’t resemble what he knew.

Skins by Gavin Watson | Goodreads

First published in 1994, Gavin Watson’s inimitable publication Skins is one of the most renowned documentations of British sub-culture to date. Beginning his career aged fourteen after impulsively purchasing a camera at Woolworth’s, Watson’s photographs have inspired films, exhibited globally and most importantly, been shared between the people who stood before his lens three decades ago as a reminder of their glory days. GW: I’ve only just started to own that, it’s taken me until nearly turning 60 to actually own that I did that. I spent most of my life making excuses and saying, “Oh anyone could have done it.” It’s only recently I’ve been able to own it, I’ve done the most incredible things to avoid what I’ve done.EJ: That’s amazing. I want to touch on music again briefly because it’s such an integral part of your work… What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer, so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing.”–Shane Meadows (Director of award-winning film This Is England).

Gavin Watson - Skins - (Hardback) | Rough Trade Gavin Watson - Skins - (Hardback) | Rough Trade

The skinhead subculture was born in England in the late 1960s as an offshoot of the mod culture. Skinheads were distinct from other British subcultures due to their uniform of boots, jeans, braces (suspenders), and the trademark shaved head. What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer, so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing.” –Shane Meadows (Director of award-winning film This Is England). Punk lent itself to violence through its embrace of aggressive music and teenage angst. Skinheads reflected this new influence by combining the exaggerated imagery of the original skinhead style with punk. A decade later, when Shane Meadows made This is England, I was able to deal with what I’d created. He discovered my book and made a story out of it — it’s very close to the bone, like watching my life.Gavin Watson grew up in a typical working class overspill town that surround London. Stumbling into photography aged 14, becoming a skinhead at 15, he inadvertently documented the real social interracial music scene behind the media’s right-wing portrayal of a demonised youth culture. Undiscovered until the 1990s, his work became a blueprint for the work of filmmaker Shane Meadows, and significantly influences a generation of photographers working today. Skins by Gavin Watson has been argued as being ‘the single most important record’ of 1970s skinhead culture in Britain, who have possibly been one of the most reviled yet misunderstood of the nation’s youth subcultures.” — Daily Mail

Skins and Punks by Gavin Watson | Music | The Guardian

In England, there were two waves of the skinhead cult. From its inception, the skinhead subculture was largely based around music. The first group appeared in the late 1960s as an offshoot of the mod subculture and largely died out by 1972. The growth of the right-wing National Front and its recruitment of youth merely increased the amount of conflict present in the skinhead subculture. Punk shows and Ska shows were marred by skinhead violence. Even American newspapers covered the race riots that exploded in London in 1981.My pictures went unseen until years after when they were discovered in a box amongst thousands at a community darkroom facility which I used to make prints. They were selected for a book about youth culture. And that’s when it all started, my first book was published and I was part of a street style exhibition in the Victoria & Albert Museum. But I wasn’t prepared for any form of success, it all went over my head. Nothing has changed. It’s got a lot more solidified. I used to feel isolated about how much bullshit was out there that we saw through at an early age. We had to rebel. I’m glad the next generation woke up and started to piss off these people in power – it’s beautiful!”