Aperture Life Through a Fleet Street Lens

John Downing was the pre-eminent press photographer of his generation: he led a life of adventure in wars and hotspots around the world. His memoir, Aperture, offers a unique and first hand insight into life behind the Fleet Street lens during one of the most interesting periods of world history and a golden age of photojournalism.

John Downing (1940-2020) was an award-winning photojournalist whose career spanned over five decades. As Chief Photographer on the Daily Express, he not only witnessed natural and man-made disasters, but also war zones and famine; he covered royal tours, political events, the famous and the infamous, the needy and the poor. He won numerous awards, including the British Press Photographer of the Year an unprecedented seven times, the United Nations Gold Medal in 1990, and the International Photographer of the Year in 1994 (La Nation, Argentina). In 1992 he was honoured with an MBE. Wendy Holden was a respected journalist and war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, covering news stories around the world. She is also the author of more than thirty non-fiction titles featuring inspirational men and women, many of which are international bestsellers and several of which are being adapted for film. They include the No.1 bestseller Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day, the memoir of Captain Sir Tom Moore, the 100-year-old war veteran who raised £40m for the NHS, and Born Survivors, the story of three mothers who hid their pregnancies from the Nazis, now published in 22 countries.