In 1965, when photojournalist John Bulmer FRPS was commissioned by The Sunday Times Magazine to photograph the North of England, he did something quietly radical. At a time when the region was defined by industrial decline - coal, steel, textiles slipping into history - he chose to work in colour, creating a body of work that revealed not only hardship, but humanity, dignity, and presence. His photographs became a cornerstone of the British documentary movement and shaped how the North has been seen ever since.
Sixty years later, that legacy became a starting point for The North Revisited. The project began as a question: what has changed and what remains? Through this project, Hill set out to retrace and build upon Bulmer’s journey.
Simon Hill HonFRPS is an award-winning editorial and documentary photographer living in the north of England and working internationally. His most recent commission, The North Revisited, is one of the largest 'north of England' photo-documentary projects awarded to a single photographer by Arts Council England (ACE).
This project was never about imitation; it was about dialogue - between past and present, between one way of seeing and another. From the last months of 2024 to mid 2026, Hill has criss-crossed the north of England. Working within the historic "seven counties of the north" and moving far beyond the original scope of Bulmer’s 16 locations, The North Revisited grew to encompass more than 50 locations - from Newcastle to Liverpool, from former mining communities to coastal towns, from city centres to remote landscapes, even tracing the motorways that today provide such vital connection between these northern centres.
Even the nature of the photographic images reflects this dialogue across time. In homage to Bulmer’s pioneering use of colour, much of Hill's work - using Contax G2 cameras and Carl Zeiss lenses - has been shot mainly on Harman Phoenix 200 - a contemporary colour film manufactured by Harman Technology, fittingly, in the north of England. This film's unpredictable, textured qualities bridge past and present in a shared visual aesthetic.
This was not simply a revisiting of places, but more a revisiting of ideas. The North photographed by Bulmer was one defined by labour and loss - communities shaped by industry but facing uncertain futures. The North that Hill has revisited is different, yet connected: it is post-industrial, it is more diverse, and it continues to evolve. Former centres of heavy industry are now sites of cultural reinvention, technological growth, and shifting identities - but they still carry the weight of their histories, and the challenges that remain.
There are echoes of Bulmer’s North - in faces, in streets, in gestures - but there are also extreme departures. New industries, new communities, new expressions of identity. The photographs do not argue for a single narrative. Instead, they accumulate into something more complex - each of the places Hill has visited becomes a touchpoint for the portrait of a region still in the process of reinventing itself.
The North Revisited is available for pre-order now, for delivery in late 2026.
The North Revisited will be 248 pages, printed as a hardback in landscape format, 290 mm x 260 mm, ISBN: 978-1-9193805-2-0
In 1965, when photojournalist John Bulmer FRPS was commissioned by The Sunday Times Magazine to photograph the North of England, he did something quietly radical. At a time when the region was defined by industrial decline - coal, steel, textiles slipping into history - he chose to work in colour, creating a body of work that revealed not only hardship, but humanity, dignity, and presence. His photographs became a cornerstone of the British documentary movement and shaped how the North has been seen ever since.
Sixty years later, that legacy became a starting point for The North Revisited. The project began as a question: what has changed and what remains? Through this project, Hill set out to retrace and build upon Bulmer’s journey.
Simon Hill HonFRPS is an award-winning editorial and documentary photographer living in the north of England and working internationally. His most recent commission, The North Revisited, is one of the largest 'north of England' photo-documentary projects awarded to a single photographer by Arts Council England (ACE).
This project was never about imitation; it was about dialogue - between past and present, between one way of seeing and another. From the last months of 2024 to mid 2026, Hill has criss-crossed the north of England. Working within the historic "seven counties of the north" and moving far beyond the original scope of Bulmer’s 16 locations, The North Revisited grew to encompass more than 50 locations - from Newcastle to Liverpool, from former mining communities to coastal towns, from city centres to remote landscapes, even tracing the motorways that today provide such vital connection between these northern centres.
Even the nature of the photographic images reflects this dialogue across time. In homage to Bulmer’s pioneering use of colour, much of Hill's work - using Contax G2 cameras and Carl Zeiss lenses - has been shot mainly on Harman Phoenix 200 - a contemporary colour film manufactured by Harman Technology, fittingly, in the north of England. This film's unpredictable, textured qualities bridge past and present in a shared visual aesthetic.
This was not simply a revisiting of places, but more a revisiting of ideas. The North photographed by Bulmer was one defined by labour and loss - communities shaped by industry but facing uncertain futures. The North that Hill has revisited is different, yet connected: it is post-industrial, it is more diverse, and it continues to evolve. Former centres of heavy industry are now sites of cultural reinvention, technological growth, and shifting identities - but they still carry the weight of their histories, and the challenges that remain.
There are echoes of Bulmer’s North - in faces, in streets, in gestures - but there are also extreme departures. New industries, new communities, new expressions of identity. The photographs do not argue for a single narrative. Instead, they accumulate into something more complex - each of the places Hill has visited becomes a touchpoint for the portrait of a region still in the process of reinventing itself.
The North Revisited is available for pre-order now, for delivery in late 2026.
The North Revisited will be 248 pages, printed as a hardback in landscape format, 290 mm x 260 mm, ISBN: 978-1-9193805-2-0
