Neil Kenlock and Armet Francis were two radical figures, who took their cameras onto the streets of North Kensington as part of a wider commitment to documenting the lives of African-Caribbean people across London and beyond. Both Jamaican-born, Francis and Kenlock arrived in Britain as children and became well-established professional photographers.
Kenlock launched his career through advertising and editorial photography, before finding himself at the forefront of black British history and culture. He was the official photographer of the British Black Panther movement in the UK during the late 1960s and 1970s, a press photographer for the West Indian World newspaper, and the co-founder of ROOT lifestyle magazine and Choice FM radio station, both pioneering media outlets catering specifically to a black British audience. From a young age, Kenlock said he realised “there was discrimination and I needed to fight that. I thought everybody should be equal, that things should be fair. There was a way to do that [through photography] without disregarding my own culture.”