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Confidentials 15 June 2008

SOME say that the strongest attribute of Liverpool's character is its ability to tell it like it is. If that's so, then Stephanie De Leng's new book has captured it rolling over on its back and baring its soul for all to see. Not to mention its freckles, warts and all.

So for anyone who didn't “get” the place before, People in Liverpool, of all the books about the city to come out in Culture year, is required reading.

Reading? Actually there's hardly any text to speak of in this first offering by the former Vogue model who got behind the Nikon lens over a decade ago.

The 64 subjects are known only by their name and rank and that is all you need, such is the impact of the photographs themselves and the personalities they reveal, whether imagined or otherwise.

People in Liverpool is filled with the famous great and the good, and the not-so-famous but equally great and good in no order of importance whatsoever.

Playwright Willy Russell opposite Chief Constable Norman Bettinson; a grinning bobby on the beat; a smiling teenage brother and sister. And on it goes: Drummond Bone, David Fleming, Loyd Grossman, singer Connie Lush, actors Eithne Brown, Warren Donnelly (the scouse copper from Shameless who graces the cover), sacked docker Tony Nelson, and our favourite, The Mattas family, all lined up outside their wonderful shop in Bold Street.

In fact, says Stephanie, Willy Russell's enthusiasm about being photographed for the book was massively buoyed after he heard the Matta family were doing it too.

In between lurk tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, and even yours truly who also arranged the commas.

Stephanie de Leng caused a minor stormette last year with her Beauty and the Beach calendar which depicted a naked lady prancing among the Gormley men on Waterloo beach.

She may be Atlanta born, London raised and of Dutch parents, but she can count herself as no stranger to the city with this captivating study. In fact, all the subjects appear remarkably at ease before the camera, as if chatting to a trusted mate.

(As to my own experience of being "shot", I spent most of the session too fascinated by the photographer's antics, her leaping on and off tables and stopping traffic outside the Casa Italia in Stanley Street, where the shoot took place, to notice much else).

Result: A sharp slice of city of Liverpool life and an extraordinary work of portraiture that stands up even if you neither know nor care about anyone in it.

All in all, bound to cause comment should you buy one of the limited edition 1,000-print run, for the smallest room, or even your coffee table.

And as for the photographer, she's apparently out snapping more people for Book Two.

People In Liverpool, Stephanie de Leng, £19.99. Available from News from Nowhere, Utility, independent retailers and also online here for £17.99.