@sidegallery
Est. in 1977: Side is dedicated to lens-based documentary. We are home to the UNESCO-listed AmberSide collection, showcasing film and documentary photography on working-class life from the North East and beyond. Sidegallery.co.uk
🎞 In Fading Light at Hexham Library at the Tyne Valley Film Festival
Amber’s 1989 film, written by North Shields playwright Tom Hadaway and made within the fishing community as the industry declined.
🗓 Mon 16 Mar 2026, 18:30
📍 Hexham Library
🔗 sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/...
👀 Neville Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne. Built in the 1870s for the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, seen from below to catch details most people walk past, photographed in 1971. A reminder shifting your angle can change how you see even the most familiar places.
📸 Join us! InSide is a monthly meet-up for photographers. A space to share work, ask questions, and build community.
Next meeting:
🗓️ Mon 16 Mar, 6–8pm
📍Meet in the quad outside Northumberland Building, City Campus, Northumbria University, NE1 8SG
🔗 sidegallery.co.uk/whats-on/...
📸 Let Us Now Praise Famous Women
A vintage poster from the 1987–88 exhibition on women photographers in the U.S. government, whose images show life during the Depression.
For Women’s History Month it’s 25% off with code March26 until midnight March 31 (GMT).
🛍 shop.amber-online.com/produ...
🌊 MySide: Silver Coins by Joseph Wilson.
From 2013–2021 he kept returning to Lynemouth’s industrial coast, where spoil, waste and everyday discard resurface with each tide.
🔗 See more: sidegallery.co.uk/blog/jose...
⛏️ 42 years ago, just a few weeks before the miners’ strike began, photographer Bruce Rae visited Easington, asking what it meant for a place to be so closely tied to coal - capturing a portrait of a community on the edge of unprecedented upheaval.
🔗 See more: sidegallery.co.uk/collectio...
🧱 Exploring "Byker Revisited"
In the 2000s, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen returned to Byker to photograph life in the Wall Estate that replaced the streets she showed in the 1970s.
🔗 See more: sidegallery.co.uk/collectio...
🛍 Buy the book: shop.amber-online.com/produ...
🏘 Terrace housing built at scale, industrial work in the distance beyond the rooftops. An instantly recognisable northern skyline shaped by proximity between home and labour.
📸 Terraced Houses, 1980 © Lambton Visual Aids
💋 New Blog Post - "Pucker Up: Kisses from the AmberSide Collection"
You might think of the AmberSide Collection as a record of the Industrial North, but contained in its archive you’ll also find social lives, and the tenderness of a kiss.
📰 Read More: sidegallery.co.uk/blog/kiss...
🌊 Tynemouth, February 1996
Thirty years ago Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen photographed this tidal pool for Writing in the Sand. The series is often remembered for beach life, but it also traces erosion and pollution along the North East coast.
🔗 See more: sidegallery.co.uk/collection/writing-in-the-sand
📸 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/...
✨ 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