Magnum Poster: Near Lake Kawaguchi, Japan, 1999

Chris Steele-Perkins was born in 1947 in Rangoon, Burma and at the age of two, moved to England with his father. At the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he studied psychology and worked for the student newspaper; he graduated with honors in 1970 and started to work as a freelance photographer, moving to London in 1971. Steele-Perkins has produced some of the most iconic images of British society in the last half century, exploring youth subcultures, poverty and community with artful sensitivity. His more than 45-year career has seen him travel widely, making significant bodies of work in his home country of Myanmar, as well as Japan, Africa and Afghanistan; all of which have received critical acclaim. Steele-Perkins became a member of Magnum Photos in 1979 and continues to work in Britain and abroad. Of this image, Steele-Perkins says: “I stopped at some roadworks at night and Fuji was visible. I made a four-minutes exposure and the flashing red lights, combined with the green fluorescent light of Fujinomiya city reflecting from the clouds, was almost hallucinogenic.”