[The Guardian] Open all hours: Manchester shopfronts of the early 80s – in pictures

Open all hours: Manchester shopfronts of the early 80s – in pictures

In the early 1980s, photographer Brian Lomas started to notice that the independent shops in his local area of north Manchester were disappearing fast. Many of the buildings were earmarked for demolition, so he made it his mission to capture the shopfronts that defined the community: chemists, florists, barbers, shoe shops.

“My uncle had a greengrocer’s, and it was a hard life – 15-hour days, six days a week – so I don’t want to over-romanticise it,” says Lomas. “But I wanted to capture that way of doing business and attracting customers, the quirky and characteristic detail of the shops – there was almost a grandeur in the decay of some of them.”

• Small Shops is published by The Modernist (£20). An exhibition will run at the gallery on Port Street, Manchester, until 1 September

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Source: Open all hours: Manchester shopfronts of the early 80s – in pictures

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