Today, everything and anything can prompt somebody to take a picture, to capture a fleeting memory, to record an event (whether potentially historic or totally mundane) — here is one serious photographer's investigation into this global phenomenon.

Contemporary British seascapes and a fascinating photographic record of the country’s remaining pleasure piers, an homage to these monuments of Victorian engineering and eccentricity. 

Simon Roberts travelled far and wide throughout his native England to capture contemporary photographs of his fellow countrymen and fabled landscapes. The results are poetic, stunningly beautiful, and sometimes quite humorous.

British photographer Simon Roberts chooses to embark on long-term, in-depth visual studies of people and the places they live. He describes his work as socio-documentary photography, which when viewed as a whole, can be seen as a rich, subjective source of visual anthropology of contemporary life.

A twelve month journey across the face of Russia in 2004-2005 delivers unexpectedly vibrant images and a compelling first person report. See some of the photographs, listen to an audio interview with the author/photographer, Simon Roberts, and then buy the book.