Mass Photography: Blackpool Through the Camera

A Saturday Night Out in Blackpool, 2010
This striking image of four lads out on the town is the most contemporary image of Blackpool in the Grundy Art Gallery's exhibition Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

Blackpool Rock, 1960s
Over the past century the resort has attracted some of Europe's greatest documentary photographers aiming to capture it's hustle and bustle Photograph: Alfred Gregory/The Gregory Archival Trust

Gypsy booth, Blackpool, 1973
'Perhaps the most intriguing photographs in the show come from Cyril Critchlow's collection of ephemera'
Photograph: The Cyril Critchlow collection/The Blackpool Local and Family History Centre

From the series South Pier Box Office. 'One suspects the ticket seller inside the booth is a man of infinite patience' Photograph: Geoff Buono

Young family outside their back street bed and breakfast, 1974
The exhibition includes images capturing all of the resort's main attractions - from the tower and the piers to the tattooists, fortune-tellers and fairground rides Photograph: Homer Sykes

A girl with Sex Appeal has her chips, 1980
Here the 'greatly underrated' Homer Sykes captures a girl 'exuding that almost tangible sense of stoicism that a British seaside resort on a grey day instils' Photograph: Homer Sykes

Young woman with a baby seated in amusement arcade, 1969
Though the show includes some Victorian photographs, its thrust is twentieth century Blackpool 'in all its changing, but oddly unchanging charm' Photograph: Tony Ray-Jones/SSPL

Blackpool tram, 1990
'What emerges from most of these images is the sense that Blackpool is a place forever in thrall to its own semi-mythical past' Photograph: Tim Brown

Couple, Blackpool, 1968
The exhibition invites the viewer to consider how different photographers have looked at people having fun but also at the downtime of mass leisure, the boredom and the excesses Photograph: Tony Ray Jones/SSPL

Girls at the donkey rides, 1963
The curator of the show is German video artist Nina Konneman. Her aim was to examine the image of the town and its continuing relevance to British popular culture Photograph: Peter Ward/Mirrorpix

People gather outside a tattooist’s in one of Alfred Gregory’s 1960s series on the town. Gregory, who is best-known for photographing the Everest expedition in 1952, spent his childhood in Blackpool and later returned to capture the town at holiday season Photograph: Alfred Gregory/The Gregory Archival Trust