Boldly Getting There

Glasgow. 1980 

A few pics from Raymond Depardon

In 1980 the Sunday Times Magazine asked Depardon to go to Glasgow. To a photographer of the south and the desert, Glasgow seemed to be at the antipodes of his photography. And yet he discovered the northern light, and remembered it later when he photographed the north of France. In Glasgow he functioned like an anthropologist: how could he avoid the trap of exoticism? What distance should he take? In large cities, Raymond Depardon feels like an inner exile, as a young man he found it hard to find his foothold in Paris. The reportage has never been published, and these photos taken in Glasgow appear now for the first time in a book. 

Abandoned Glasgow Central lower level line stations, 1968/69.