Graham Scott Finlayson (1932–1999)[1] was an English photojournalist who first worked for the Daily Mail and the Guardian, and later freelanced.
Finlayson was born in Ecclesall, Yorkshire in 1932[2] He started work at the Southampton Echo, but after national service "with the RAF air–sea rescue division"[3] worked in Manchester, first for the Daily Mail and from 1959 for the Guardian,[4][5] in Manchester (replacing Bob Smithies, who moved to London).
[4] Finlayson was able to photograph L. S. Lowry, usually uncooperative with the press, and had a particularly successful working relationship with the writer Arthur Hopcraft.
[6] The Guardian did not restrict Finlayson to the Manchester area, instead sending him on assignments to such places as Ireland, Spain, Cyprus, Borneo, Nigeria and Indonesia.
Martin Harrison credits a 1983 exhibition at the Photographers' Gallery, British Photography 1955–65 (curated by Sue Davies), with saving his work (as well as that of John Bulmer and others) from obscurity;[10] much later, Harrison would go on to show it in a 1998 exhibition titled The Young Meteors.