In Gary’s Friends the photographer Adrian Clarke directs his lens at a community of drug and alcohol abusers in the North East of England. This collection of sixty photographs and forty interviews, together with an introduction by author, Alexander Masters is a bulletin from another Britain which lies beyond the usual comfort zone, a Britain afflicted by poverty, prejudice, violence and, most of all, lack of care.
Clarke’s photography is perfectly suited to his task: by avoiding any hint of sensationalism or artifice he has produced a series of images of great delicacy and beauty from lives blighted by ugliness. Most of the subjects are connected in one way or another to Gary Crooks, ex-drug addict, drug dealer, gangster and armed robber and now a thoughtful and intelligent commentator on his own life.
Gary's Friends will be bought not just by those with an interest in fine art photography and photoreportage but also by anyone interested in real life stories, and the issues of drug and alcohol abuse. It will be of interest to educational establishments of all sorts as a tool to stimulate discussion of the issues it raises; it will have a local audience in the North East of England as well as a national audience attracted by the rare glimpse it gives into a very different Britain from the one in which most of us live.
