Richard Davis (born 1965) is a British, social documentary and portrait photographer, based in North West England. His work has been promoted and exhibited by the British Culture Archive and photography publishers, Café Royal Books. A series of Davis' photographs of Hulme Crescents, from the 1980s are currently held at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library which is part of the University of Manchester.
Davis was born in Birmingham. He moved from Birmingham to study photography at Manchester Polytechnic (now Manchester Metropolitan University) in 1988. Whilst living in the city, he quickly started documenting life in the inner-city area of Hulme, its huge brutalist inspired concrete Crescents, as well as its many characters that inhabited the flats, many of which were squatters.
Davis also photographed stars of the Madchester scene as well as taking early portraits of comedians Steve Coogan and Caroline Aherne along with the poet Lemn Sissay.
Davis also photographed Nirvana live on their first tour of the United Kingdom in 1989, photographs of which were used in the BBC Two documentary film, When Nirvana Came to Britain.
In the early 1990s Davis teamed up with author Steve Redhead to work on a project called Football With Attitude, his photographs making the links between music, football and fashion.
More recently, Davis made a series of portraits of Mancunians under the Mancunian Way, a document of life around Gravelly Hill Interchange, the original spaghetti junction, in Birmingham and a set of photographs capturing life in the coastal resort of Morecambe.
This Nations Saving Grace
Entertainment UK
Football With Attitude
Under Morecambe Skies
Portraiture - Past & Present
Streets in the Sky
In the City
My Brutal Life
Davis' work is held in the following permanent collections: