Face off: Don Mcphee captures a tense moment during the 1984 miners strike
Two long-serving Guardian photographers, one retired, one still snapping, will talk about their life in pictures at a Cheshire arts centre on Friday.
Denis Thorpe and Don McPhee have together spent more than 50 years with the paper, all of them in Manchester, covering news and features both at home and abroad.
Both have produced pictures that have proved to be iconic images of the 1984 miners' strike. Both have had exhibitions of their work in Manchester - McPhee's show at the Manchester Art Gallery attracted more people than any other event since the gallery reopened after its extension in 2000.
They have distinctive styles but share a deep fascination with people: Thorpe's picture of the face of a miner at the end of the strike was full of the pain of defeat; McPhee's picture of two old gents flat out on the beach at Blackpool in their raincoats and caps said much about companionship, idiosyncrasy and the north.
Thorpe retired (with roll film) as the digital age began: one of his most famous shots is of a steam-hauled train crossing the Ribblehead viaduct on the Settle to Carlisle line in the Yorkshire Dales: he casually invited a reporter to see this classic shot emerge in a darkroom dish.
McPhee meanwhile embraced revolutionary technology (with the occasional burst of under-breath muttering as he grovels with a computer cable under his desk) and still enthuses, whether it is taking pictures of a Muslim funeral director in Oldham or a mystery play in a church in southern Spain.
They will be doing a rare double act at the Bollington Arts Centre near Macclesfield, Cheshire, at 8pm on Friday October 27.
