Fashion photographer Tim Walker has created a new body of work documenting queer British life, inspired by a personal discovery in North London.
Six years ago, Walker found a plaque in Highbury Fields marking the site of 1970s public toilets where Louis Eakes, chairman of the Young Liberals, was arrested for importuning during a police entrapment. The plaque noted that the Gay Liberation Front organised the first gay rights demonstration in Britain at that location to protest his arrest. Walker learned the date: 27 November 1970. His birthday.
"Who were those people out marching that day? Where are they now?" Walker asked himself, according to the source material.
That question sparked the photographer's project. He has now turned his camera on activists, artists, writers, models and everyday figures from gay life in Britain. Walker, whose previous work includes portraits of Madonna, Rihanna, Kate Moss and Frank Ocean, calls the resulting images "erotic landscapes."
The project represents a shift in focus for a photographer known for high-profile celebrity and fashion work. By connecting his own birth date to a landmark moment in British LGBTQ+ history, Walker found a personal stake in documenting the people and stories that followed.