The 80s: Photographing Britain

Tate Britain, until May 5th 2025

Explore one of the UK’s most critical decades for photography, the 1980s. This exhibition traces the work of a diverse community of photographers, collectives, and publications that created radical responses to the turbulent Thatcher years. Set against the backdrop of race uprisings, the miner strikes, section 28, the AIDS pandemic, and gentrification – be inspired by stories of protest and change.

At the time, photography was used for social change, political activism and artistic and photographic experiments. See powerful images that gave voice and visibility to underrepresented groups in society. This includes work depicting the Black Arts Movement, queer experience, South Asian diaspora, and the increased representation of women in photography.

This exhibition examines how photography collectives and publications highlighted these often-unseen stories, featured in innovative photography journals such as Ten 8 and Cameraworks. It also examines the development of Autograph ABP, Half Moon Photography Workshop, and Hackney Flashers.

Metro Imaging collaborated for many months in production, utilizing a range of services including film scanning, printing, mounting and framing. There are over 250 works spread over ten rooms and if you get the chance it is well worth a visit.

Tate Britain 2 Tate Britain 3 Tate Britain 4

We offer the following types of printing

Partial photo of a face covered in hundres and thousands printed on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper which is available in both gloss and a semi matt finish.

C Type Professional Photo Printing

We have been printing the highest quality C-Type prints for decades and digital C-Types produced on our Lambda have the archival and tonal benefits of traditional photographic papers, with the advantages of digital photo printing. C-Types are a conventional photographic print from a digital file, and as such is the most suitable option when printing a colour photograph.

Printing linking you through to our giclee printing service.

Fine Art Giclée Printing

We have Hahnemuhle and Canson Giclée Certified Studio staus and with over 30 years experience in photographic printing we use the most advanced inkjet technologies. Giclée is a gallery-quality inkjet print onto fine art watercolour paper. This is most suitable for art illustrations, but can also be used for colour and B&W photographs.

This a picture take of a very large black and white ilford fibre based print of two people.

Black & White Printing

We have worked in collaboration with Harman Technology to develop genuine B&W silver gelatin Fibre-Based and Resin-Coated photographic prints from digital files. The Resin-Coated is suitable for most types of B&W printing, and Fibre-Based is ideal for exhibition quality.

Metro called it Direct to Media. Essentially this is a UV printing machine that can produce very large, up to 3m x 2m prints on any flat material less than 10cm thick. So we can print on wood, metal, slate and pretty much anything you can think of.

Direct to Media Printing

Direct to media printing is exactly that; we print your image directly to a substrate of your choice. Be it paper, card, aluminium, Perspex, canvas, wood, slate… Our Jetrix UV inkjet flatbed printer can print on any flat surface up to 3m x 2m, less than 10cm thick. To ensure your material is suitable, we can print test prints around A4 in size.

This is a print on adhesive vinyl. The vinyl is on a roll and 1.2m wide, but it can printed in multiple pieces in order to cover a wall.

Vinyl Printing

Vinyl Phototex is chosen for its high-quality Giclée finish as well as its ease of application to wall or mounting material due to its self-adhesive properties. We can print on vinyl using our direct to media printer, in strips of 1.5m x 3m and these can be applied to the wall in the fashion of wallpaper to cover a complete wall or interior.