Background
Christopher Steele-Perkins was born on July 28, 1947, in Yangon, Myanmar of a British father and a Burmese mother. His father left his mother and took the boy to England at the age of two. He grew up in Burnham-on-Sea.
the University of York
Newcastle University
Christopher Steele-Perkins was born on July 28, 1947, in Yangon, Myanmar of a British father and a Burmese mother. His father left his mother and took the boy to England at the age of two. He grew up in Burnham-on-Sea.
Christopher Steele-Perkins went to Christ's Hospital and for one year studied chemistry at the University of York before leaving for a stay in Canada. Returning to Britain, he joined the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, where he served as photographer and picture editor for a student magazine. He received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. After graduating in psychology in 1970 he started to work as a freelance photographer, specializing in the theatre, while he also lectured in psychology.
After graduating in psychology in 1970 Christopher Steele-Perkins started to work as a freelance photographer, specializing in the theatre, while he also lectured in psychology. By 1971, he had moved to London and become a full-time photographer, with a particular interest in urban issues, including poverty. In 1975, Christopher Steele-Perkins joined the Exit Photography Group with the photographers Nicholas Battye and Paul Trevor and there continued his examination of urban problems. He was a lecturer at Polytechnic of Central London (now the University of Westminster), England, in 1977-1978.
Christopher Steele-Perkins photographed wars and disasters in the third world. He made four trips to Afghanistan in the 1990s, sometimes staying with the Taliban, the majority of whom "were just ordinary guys" who treated him courteously. The book and the traveling exhibition of photographs were also reviewed favorably in the Guardian, Observer, Library Journal, and London Evening Standard.
Christopher Steele-Perkins has belonged to the National Union of Journalists since 1974 and was on the Photography Committee of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1976 to 1979. In 1979 hr joined Magnum Photos as a nominee, and becoming an associate member in 1981 and a full member in 1983.
Quotes from others about the person
Philip Hensher: "A book of his black and white images, Afghanistan, was published first in French, and later in English and in Japanese. The review in The Spectator read in part: These astonishingly beautiful photographs are more moving than can be described; they hardly ever dwell on physical brutalities, but on the bleak rubble and desert of the country, punctuated by inexplicable moments of formal beauty, even pastoral bliss...the grandeur of the images comes from Steele-Perkins never neglecting the human, the individual face in the great crowd of history."
Christopher Steele-Perkins has two sons, Cedric, born 16 November 1990, and Cameron, born 18 June 1992. With his marriage to Miyako Yamada, he has a stepson, Daisuke, and a grand-daughter, Momoe.