Side

✨ MySide: The girls of LS, Leeds, 2024

Children sit along a low wall in Leeds. A small, ordinary moment that holds the wider story of where they are growing up and the changing world around them.

Share your own photographs with MySide: 🔗 sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/...

🚪 Closing of Wills’ Factory, 1986

Wills’ was a major employer in the North East, but by 1986 the factory was closing and work had already fallen away. This image shows the last marks from a workforce about to vanish.

Share your own moments of change 👉 sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/...

🐘 5 February marks 106 years since North East photographer Edgar G. Lee died. Lee was a unique photographer, using hand-built cameras and fast dry plates to catch real street moments as they happened.

See more from his work in the AmberSide Collection: 🔗 sidegallery.co.uk/collectio...

📸 Join us! InSide is a monthly meet-up for photographers working in documentary. A space to share work, ask questions, and build community.

Next meeting:
🗓️ Mon 16 Feb, 6–8pm
📍Meet in Sandyford Foyer, City Campus, Northumbria Uni, NE1 8QH
🔗 sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/...

🏭 For over a century, Suvilahti powered Helsinki. Since industry closed, artists, skaters, and communities have made the site their own. Now redevelopment looms. We spoke to Adam Monaghan about his project documenting its changing culture.

🔗 Read more: sidegallery.co.uk/blog/mysi...

🛍️ Last chance to take advantage of our vintage poster sale! With over 50 designs to choose from, each poster is a piece of documentary history.

Until midnight January 31st, buy two or more posters and get 25% off your poster order.

🛒 Shop now → shop.amber-online.com/colle...

🎂 Murray Martin, born 27 January 1943

Murray Martin (1943–2007) was a founding member of the Amber Collective. His commitment to everyday life,and community continues to shape documentary practice in the North East and beyond.

Learn more about Amber: sidegallery.co.uk/about/abo...

🏇 New MySide blog: Langholm Common Riding

Matt MacPake photographs the Langholm Common Riding, documenting how a centuries-old tradition continues to shape memory, identity, and belonging.

🔗 sidegallery.co.uk/blog/lang...

🧳 New In Focus blog post - The Withdrawal of Soviet Troops from Czechoslovakia

A close look at Dana Kyndrová's photographs from inside the Soviet barracks, where change is absorbed into routine, and doesn't look like the spectacle you expect.

🔗 sidegallery.co.uk/blog/in-f...

📸 MySide: Fabio Pellegrini

A Rome-based firefighter and self-taught photographer, Fabio shares everyday scenes from Rome, Newcastle, and Naples, shaped by work, travel, and the places he passes through.

Show us your side of life: Submit to MySide → sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/...

🎞️ Home Front was a 1986 Side Gallery exhibition by Derek Bishton & John Reardon, documenting everyday life in communities shaped by migration as the Empire came “home”.

Original posters now on sale: £20 each, 25% off when you buy 2+. Sale ends 31 Jan.

🛒 shop.amber-online.com/colle...

🛠️ Most people today encounter Dunston Staiths as a quiet heritage site. In the 1970s, it was a dangerous place of work.

A new film by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen and Peter Roberts brings that history back into view → sidegallery.co.uk/blog/coal-staiths-of-the-river-tyne

Commissioned by Tyne Derwent Way

📣 MySide open call: Moments of Change

We’re inviting photos of everyday moments where something is shifting. Big or small. Planned or unexpected. Share your photographs with our team!

Deadline: midnight (GMT), 1 April 2026
Submit → sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/myside

💃 MySide: Maria Maza – Christmas Ballroom, Blackpool Tower Ballroom, 2025

“I was mesmerised by the dancers, who, regardless of age, glided graciously and effortlessly.”

Shared as part of MySide, our grassroots documentary photography project. Submit your images → sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/mys...

📣 Last year we said big changes were coming. Here’s the first!

Side is establishing a curatorial office at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, making the AmberSide Collection, our programming and documentary photography more accessible than ever.

📰 Read more: sidegallery.co.uk/blog/side-at...

🎡 The Hoppings in three acts:

Richard Simpson drops us into the rush.
Lorna MacKay catches the last lights at closing time.
Michaela Simpson shows the morning after, rides packed and gone.

Three views of one Newcastle tradition.

Share your images: MySide’s open → sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/myside

🖤🌈 Black & white or colour? It’s a familiar debate for documentary photographers. We asked this and more in our new #MySide interview with photographer Michele Allan.

📰 Read the full interview: sidegallery.co.uk/blog/myside-michele-allan
📸 Share your photos: sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/myside

🦌 36 years ago Side opened "Reindeer People: The Saami of Lapland", exploring the Indigenous people of northern Scandinavia.

The vintage poster is available on Side Shop (£20). Buy 2 or more posters to get 25% off your poster order until 31 January.

🛒 shop.amber-online.com/collections/merchandise

☎️ New year, same “one minute, I’m just figuring this out” phone call.

This 1980 shot by Richard Grassick at Cummins Engines captures a feeling that hasn’t changed: a call in one hand, the other in your hair, solutions needed.

📸 ©Richard Grassick

🔨 MySide submission from Newcastle’s Ben Hodgson.

He photographed the final days of the Toys 'R' Us demolition at the Metrocentre, explaining “This place may not have made me, but I’ve little doubt it made other generations…”

Share your photos: sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/myside

📢 InSide meets again on Mon 12 Jan, 6–8pm at the Coffee Rooms (2nd floor), Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle. Six photographers will share work in the first hour, followed by open discussion and time to connect.

Let us know you’re coming: forms.gle/1PXDuXZcApuQ...

🛍️ Our vintage poster sale runs until 31 Jan. Buy 2 or more and get 25% off your poster order. There are more than 50 original posters available from Side’s exhibition history, like this announcement poster from our 1999 to 2000 season. £20 each.

🛒 shop.amber-online.com/collections/merchandise

Izabela Jędrzejczyk captures the Rowing Boat Dance in full swing ("Striking Women, 1984/85). In the 80s it was completely normal to sit on a beer-soaked floor and row in time with everyone around you 🎉

If you’ve got your party images, share with "MySide": sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/myside

🥴 We all know that 3.30 am party slump. Mik Critchlow caught it perfectly in "The First Footers, Ashington, 1986". Party hats slipping, eyes shutting, and the new year rolling in whether you’re ready or not.

Submit your photos to "MySide: Ways We Celebrate": sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/myside

🪩 NYE calls for a disco ball!

Tyrone Williams’ "Mirror Ball", 2018 is part of our 50x50 fundraising sale, with each print only £50.

🖼 Buy "Mirror Ball": shop.amber-online.com/products/mirror-ball-2018
🛍 Shop the 50x50 sale: shop.amber-online.com/collections/prints

✨ Karen Robinson’s "All Dressed Up", 2004-2005, follows teenage girls in East Durham as they get ready, go out and mark their own milestones. Because this time of year is full of its own parties & getting-ready rituals, we’re inviting you to share how you celebrate: sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/myside

📢 InSide meets again on Mon 12 Jan, 6–8pm at the Coffee Rooms (2nd floor), Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle. Six photographers will share work in the first hour, followed by open discussion and time to connect.

Let us know you’re coming: forms.gle/1PXDuXZcApuQ...

👑 Did you know the AmberSide Collection holds work from around the world, including Diane Arbus? This 1970 photograph shows a senior citizens’ dance where two strangers were crowned King and Queen for the night.

© The Estate of Diane Arbus

🌍 New on the blog: "MySide: Views from Around the World".

A look at life from the likes of Ireland, Brazil, Cyprus, China, Iran and the North Sea.

See more images and read the stories behind them here: sidegallery.co.uk/blog/myside-views-from-around-the-world

🎉 Christmas is here and we're celebrating with an image of recognisable festive domesticity from the AmberSide Collection.

See more Christmas scenes from the North East, across the UK and overseas on our blog: sidegallery.co.uk/blog/christmas-in-the-amberside-collection

📸 ©Peter Fryer