The photographs for South Wales Housing Estate 1986 were taken in response to my first visit to Southern California in the winter of 1985. The seemingly endless suburbs of San Diego made an impression on me. These were man-altered environments comprised of houses, gardens, and parked cars that spread across the landscape. To some extent, post-war British housing estates of the 1960s onwards mirrored the aspirational developments in the US suburbs but on a less ambitious level.

I was aware of the work of the New Topographics photographers – in particular Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams and Joe Deal – who had documented the housing developments in the American Southwest, which informed my approach to photography. The South Wales housing estate in this book is located in Caerleon. My photographs of the housing estate prefigure my extensive photographic work in San Diego and can be seen as an exercise in learning how to picture these places.

Published by Café Royal Books.  
Edited by Craig Atkinson.  
First Published 2020.  
Edition of 250.