The Free Photographic Omnibus 1973-2001
 
In July 1973, 21-year-old Daniel Meadows, fresh out of art school, bought a £360 double-decker bus and set off across England in search of ordinary people to photograph. Over the course of a 14-month trip, he offered free portrait sessions in 22 different cities, developing the black-and-white prints in a darkroom he had devised inside the bus, which he also lived on. He photographed a total of 958 people, alone or in groups, most of whom remained anonymous and collected their free portraits the next day.
A quarter of a century later, Meadows found the photographs of the buses in his archive and was struck by how recent they were. After they were displayed and featured in a magazine, he began to wonder what had happened to the people in the pictures. With the help of the local press from Barrow-in-Furness, Hartlepool and Southampton, he went looking for them. Many could not be found, others had died, but several people turned up to be photographed again.
The juxtaposition of his past and present selves in this astonishing documentary adventure creates a powerful pictorial story of England's changing face, the vagaries of fashion and the ravages of time. Meadows interviews the models, everyday people from various walks of life, who speak candidly about their lives, their friends, their loves, their families, and what they feel the future holds for them, providing a moving commentary on the evocative journey of Meadows through time.