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= Simon Wheatley = Simon Wheatley (born 1970) is a highly regarded street photographer, most famous for documenting the emergence and rise of grime music and youth culture around London from the late 1990s into the 2000s. Since 2018 he has been working as the resident photographer for Abbey Road Studios.

Early life
Simon Wheatley was born in Malaysia to an Indian-Bengali mother and a white British father. As a family they emigrated to England in the mid 1980s Where he was subsequently sent to Charterhouse School in Surrey. At first During his time at School in England Wheatley found it "hard", routinely being racially abused and taunted by the children mostly in the years above him, despite making friends in his year. When he progressed to sixth form however times be became slightly easier finding that football helped bridge the social divides he was previously experiencing

After leaving school, Wheatley studied at Manchester University where he spent his last year abroad in Brazil. During this time he was using his mothers old point and shoot camera and established a real sense of independence and connection to photography. After graduation, Simon travelled to Prague and then to Budapest where living and working. Before he left his father lent him an Olympus OM-1 SLR camera which Wheatley began his passion for street photography with whilst living there, citing William Kleins gritty New York photography he saw whilst at an exhibition in Prague as a big influence.

"Don't call me urban"
Simon Wheatley's book "Don't Call Me Urban" (released in 2011) is recognised as a groundbreaking and influential piece of work. It documents the beginnings of both a unique subculture and grime music in the early 2000s both born out of the ongoing social issues of the time like drug usage and the antisocial misbehaviour of severely underprivileged black and white youth of the time. Simon stood put from others working within the genre during the time mainly because of his honest and legitimate hopes for the scene as well as his genuine friendship with so many of Grime musics most famous individuals such as Giggs, Kano and Skepta. This allowed for so many of the pictures he captured that are used in the book to now be heavily associated with the subculture and Grime music itself.

"Silverlink"
His next book "Silverlink" (published 2022) features images captured from 1998 up until 2010. They were taken along the Silverlink railway line (previously the North London Line) using out of date Kodachrome film until it was ultimately discontinued. The book displays the gentrification of areas across the line, capturing Londons social disparities and diversity, but also the feeling of tight knit togetherness. It shows how these factors impact the characters seen in Wheatley's photography over the 12 year period of shooting the images. The book includes a multitude of photographs but also some descriptions of encounters, ultimatley ending with an essay written by graffiti artist Panik who is the son of a senior member of the train workers union ending the book on a relevent personal note.

"Lost Dreams"
Focusing again on the grime scene, "Lost Dreams" draws on the extensive back catalogue of photographs that Wheatley shot whilst doing "Don't Call Me Urban" from the period between 2005 and 2007. It focuses on the life and coming of age of the underground crews Wile Out Onez and Bomb Squad, who were the "youngers" of Grimes most famous crew Roll Deep. Set in and around the youth clubs and council estate tower blocks in the E3 and E14 postcodes of London, It reflects what life was like for so many kids who grew up there during that time.