Bill Stephenson Photography Collection
Date range: 1980s -1990s
Medium: Photography
Number of items: c.50 prints.
Bill Stephenson was born in 1955 in Birmingham but spent his teenage years growing up in Leeds. Always creative, after studying for his A levels he enrolled on the Furniture Design course at Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham. During the course he was required to complete a short photography block. As soon as he started creating images with a camera, he knew this was the career he had been looking for and resigned from the Furniture Design course.
Unable to join the photography course directly, as he was ineligible to receive a student grant, he began working in various jobs; as a tyre fitter, van delivery driver and a summer season as a photographer at Butlins Holiday Camp, Skegness in 1977.
In 1978 he sent a small portfolio of photographs to the British Journal of Photography which was published. This led to an invitation from the Communication Arts, BA (Hons) Fine Art Degree course at Sheffield City Polytechnic to consider applying to join the course. Photographer Paul Hill was a visiting lecturer on the course during his second year there and encouraged Stephenson to focus on producing “visual narratives” with his photography around subjects that you think are important and to “tell people what you have seen”.
Stepheson quickly developed a passion and commitment for photographing and recording communities of people who are often overlooked, neglected, marginalised or considered unimportant.
Between 1982 and 1995 he was a Director of the Untitled Gallery, which later became Site Gallery in Sheffield. In 1985, Stephenson was awarded an Artist in Industry Fellowship and was nominated for the Fox Talbot Award for the ‘Streets in the Sky’ exhibition in 1989. He was ‘Photographer in Residence’ at Sheffield Children’s Hospital in 1996.
Stephenson continued to work on commissioned social documentary photography projects by organisations including the United Nations Population Fund, Oxfam and Channel 4 alongside running a successful commercial photography business before semi-retiring in 2021.
We have two major photo-stories, Oldham ’85. Sheltered Housing, Care of the Elderly: Portraits and Conversations and Bosnia and Herzegovina – November/December 1993
- Oldham, 1985. The Sheltered Housing and Care of the Elderly project was commissioned by Oldham Leisure Services and Northwest Arts, the photographs and conversations were made during the summer of 1985 and exhibited at Oldham Art Gallery in September later that year.
- Bosnia and Herzegovina, December 1993. Photographs and interviews taken during a 3-week assignment to the enclave of Tuzla in eastern Bosnia during December 1993 on behalf of aid agency Oxfam.
The collection is of interest to researchers across many disciplines, including photography, humanitarianism, the history of art; and to those interested in visual culture, popular culture and sociology.
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