SKINHEAD - NICK KNIGHT

Skinhead — Nick Knight

Skinhead is Nick Knight’s seminal debut book and a landmark of British photography. First published in the early 1980s, the work documents the skinhead subculture in Britain with unflinching intimacy and formal rigor—captured before the movement’s imagery was irreversibly politicized.

Shot in stark black and white, Knight’s photographs focus on youth, identity, class, and belonging. The images are direct and unsentimental, yet deeply human: shaved heads, braces, boots, glances held just long enough to unsettle. What emerges is not spectacle, but proximity—an insider’s view of a subculture at a specific historical moment.

Often cited as one of the most important photobooks of its era, Skinhead announced Nick Knight as a radical new voice and laid the foundation for a career that would later reshape fashion photography. Today, the book stands as both a social document and a cult object, sought after by collectors, photographers, and anyone interested in subcultural history.