Blackhill, Consett, County Durham 1976

Graham Smith made this photograph, "Blackhill, Consett, County Durham," using traditional photographic methods. It's a grayscale image, where tonal range does all the work. It's not just a picture, it's a document. The texture is amazing: the sooty plumes of the industrial plant behind the terraced houses, the brick work in the buildings, the road surface and the clothing of the figures standing in the doorway. The whole image is a kind of metaphor, and the contrast between the children playing on the corner and the belching smoke stacks in the distance is particularly striking. Smith worked with documentary photography in the style of people like Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, yet he brings his own contemporary, personal sensibility to this very old form. It reminds us that art doesn't stand still; it's always evolving, responding to our times.