By the age of four Dave Heath had been abandoned by both of his parents; by fifteen he had lived in a series of foster homes and finally in an orphanage. Struck by how succinctly a set of pictures could connect to a deeply felt shared experience, he knew he wanted to become a photographer, and began to master the mechanics of the medium in the orphanage darkroom. Working in the streets of north-eastern American cities in the early 1960s, he used their inhabitants to capture individual moments in tightly structured compositions charged with the importance of their individuality and the seriousness of their situation. This volume reproduces his original prints, many of which exist only as individual work prints.