The Documentary Photography Archive (DPA) is a photo archive founded in 1985 and held at the Greater Manchester County Record Office by Manchester City Council. The archive captures aspects of the people and places of the Greater Manchester region in the UK and includes over 100,000 images from family albums and elsewhere, from the 1840s to the 1950s.[1] It also commissioned contemporary photographers to document aspects of everyday life from the mid-1980s to the 1990s, which is also held in the archive.[1]
The collection of images and related material includes:
Staff at the archive have included Caroline Warhurst[6] and Audrey Linkman.[8]
Caroline began working in photography at Manchester Studies Photography Archive, where in addition to working as a researcher she also programmed a photographic gallery at Manchester Polytechnic. As a key member of The Documentary Photography Archive she was involved in the commissioning of several contemporary photographers including Martin Parr, Clement Cooper and John Darwell.
Clement worked as a photographer and reporter for a number of local newspapers, before receiving his first important commission in 1987 from the Documentary Photography Archive in Manchester to record aspects of life within the Moss Side and Longsight Afro-Caribbean community. The commission resulted in his first book and exhibition, Presence (1989).