Through the Lens

BBC series for broadcast and digital platforms

In 2017 Adam produced, shot and edited several episodes of this landmark series for the BBC.  'Through the Lens' profiles a dozen photographers from the iconic Magnum Photos agency.  In each film, a photographer discusses how they came to capture iconic images of world changing events - from the civil rights movement in the US, through to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 9/11 Attacks.  

Mark Power - the fall of the Berlin Wall

Mark Power just happened to be in Berlin on the night the Wall came down. Here he describes what it was like to chance upon a world-changing event.

“My memory of Berlin that night is these black-and-white pictures."

David Hurn - Sixties London

David Hurn documented the glamour and the grit of Britain in an era of liberation. Here he describes taking photos of The Beatles, a foam kiss and one of London’s first strip clubs.

“I see myself just as an observer of the eccentricities of life… the exotic of the mundane."

Ian Berry - Africa under apartheid

Ian Berry was the only photographer at the Sharpeville massacre in March 1960. Here, he relives the event that marked a defining moment for the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

"Only as they started to fall around me did I realise they were shooting real bullets into the back of people.”

Stuart Franklin - Tiananmen Square Massacre

Stuart Franklin describes documenting the Tiananmen Square Massacre and capturing the iconic image of the person who has come to be known as ‘tank man’: a figure who stood firm as a line of tanks moved toward him, and whose fate is still unknown.

"...as the tanks rolled through the now-cleared crowd, a single guy – white shirt, black trousers, two shopping bags – stood in the middle of the road.”

Chris Steele-Perkins - Thatcher’s Britain

Chris Steele-Perkins documented Britain under the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s. In the video, he discusses his images of National Front supporters, opera-goers in a field of cows and a drunken fight in a nightclub.

“It is about demarcating a period and a time, and trying to put that down… in imagery.”

David Hurn - the last photo of my Father

We asked each of the photographers taking part in the series to talk about one photo that had a special meaning for them. Here, David Hurn talks about this moving photograph - the last that he took of his father before he died.

"... probably the most important picture I've ever taken."

 CREDITS (VIDEO PRODUCTION)

Camera - Adam Proctor, Ewa Headley, Daniel John, Howard Timberlake

Edit (David Hurn, Mark Power) - Adam Proctor

Edit (Steele-Perkins, Ian Berry, Stuart Franklin) - Daniel John

Titles and Motion Graphics - Adam Proctor

Click here to see the original 'Through the Lens' videos on BBC Culture.

(Adam produced and shot the above videos during his time leading the multimedia unit at BBC Global News.)

Music - Audio Network

Producer - Adam Proctor

Series Producer - Fiona MacDonald

Grateful thanks to Magnum Photos