Nigel Shafran

Everyday life is the thread that runs through Nigel Shafran’s photography, of which the low-key Londoner has said, “it’s all life and death and that’s it.” Intimate family scenes and mundane locales are the subjects of his six books, such as Ruthbook (1995), Dad’s Office (1999), Dark Rooms (2016) and the hugely influential Teenage Precinct Shoppers (2013). Shafran’s candid portraits and subtle still lifes were instantly popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s when they were published in style magazines The Face and i-D alongside the work of so-called “grunge” photographers, Corinne Day and Juergen Teller. International exhibitions and commissions for The Victoria & Albert Museum and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre led to an equally fruitful career in the art world, which Shafran balances with commercial work for brands such as Smythson, Loewe and Hermès.