Paul Walsh - New Publication

MAP6 photographer Paul Walsh is part of a new publication released by The Velvet Cell. Chronicles is a collection of five small projects by five different photographic artists who also include Hans Schlimbach, Maarten Vromans, Miguel Henriques, and Sam Oberter. Presented in a box with accompanying text, each of the projects comes as its own separate booklet. Included is Paul Walsh’s series Bokštas 25, where he circumnavigated the Televizijos Bokštas 25 times on foot, photographing the TV tower from different views across the city of Vilnius in Lithuania.

5 Separate Booklets
Softcover, Staple Binding
Digital Printing
Limited Edition of 100
CRN001

Free Shipping to EU + UK

€18.50

You can purchase Chronicles from the Velvet Cell website here.

Ioanna Sakellaraki - Kickstarter Campaign

The Truth is in the Soil, a new photobook by our friend Ioanna Sakellaraki, charts a 5-year photographic exploration of grief as an elegy to her father and the dying tradition of mourning in Greece. Ioanna is currently running a Kickstarter campaign offering advanced signed copies of the book as well as a selection of limited edition prints and a special edition of the photobook which by pre-buying will support the overall production of the book.

My return to my homeland Greece marked the departure on a journey of understanding death through family, religion, mythology and the self. My own grieving process became the lens through which I investigated the collective mourning in Greek society, the intersection of ancestral rituals, private trauma and the passage of time. Further inspired by the last communities of mourners on the Mani Peninsula of Greece as the doyennes of a dying tradition, the work incorporates a new kind of subjectivity, intimacy, and criticism, exploring mortuary rituals as a way of humans adapting to death.

Five years later, The Truth is in the Soil, reflects on how my personal story has transformed into a collective narrative of loss aiming at contributing to the collection of tales of human struggle for meaning. To me, these images work as vehicles for mourning perished ideals of vitality, prosperity and belonging, attempting to tell something further than their subjects by creating a space where death can exist. Death brings with it an inevitable rupture in beliefs, roles and identity for those who encounter it. How can one deal with loss?

In the wake of witnessing loss globally within our cultures and civilizations, I want to stimulate the viewer to rethink mortality through this imagined path of departure onto a new landscape. 

Publishing this book marks the end of a journey for me and the transition into a new phase. I can only hope for it to become a source of empathy, strength and inspiration for the ones who will acquire it.

The support I receive through this campaign will be entirely dedicated to the production of the book. The book has been designed in collaboration with renowned book designer Stu Smith and will be published by GOST Books. It will be a hardback, clothbound book, 220 x 300mm in portrait format and printed both colour and duotone at EBS in Italy. The special editions will be presented in a handmade clothbound slipcase. Accompanying the images will be a series of fictocritical essays written as part my research and engagement with critical theory, philosophical poetics and aesthetics throughout this project.

Giving this work a permanent existence by realising it into a book has been one of the long-standing objectives of my practice and the wishful outcome of my personal and emotional investment into this project. However, publishing a photography book is increasingly challenging due to the high costs of design, printing and distribution. As a young, self-funded photographer, I will be putting part of my savings into the production but I am not able to cover all the costs. I therefore count on your support for bringing this project into the world. I am forever grateful for helping me make this real.

To help Ioanna fund her new book, you can visit her Kickstarter campaign page here.

Guest Feature - Angela Zheng

This work showcases the alleys that run along the backyards of residential homes in several Hamilton neighbourhoods. In practice, these alleys serve as parking space for residents; cars can drive through the alley and park behind the yard. Here though, I document the passage of time as it transforms these alleys and the power of nature in reclaiming its land. In areas of the alleys that humans have left unmaintained, wildlife has taken over. There are traces of human life in the household items left behind. Taken together, these photographs bring to light a different kind of place within the city and in between rows of houses, where the alleys run, the forces of nature dominate.

Angela Zheng is a photographer based in Ontario, Canada. Her interests are in urban landscapes and still life. Her current work focuses on highlighting abandoned or decaying buildings, emphasising the economic transformations taking place in the city of Hamilton. Angela is a member of Gallery 1313.

angelazh.com

Guest Feature - Drew Ducote

Oil Country is a project about the numerous refinery towns along the Texas Gulf Coast and the communities within them. This project uses the medium of photography as a geographic research tool to provide an illustration of place. These towns, which are some of the most heavily polluted areas in the United States, struggle to deal with the environmental and health impacts of the refineries. Still, the communities within them remain resilient. These images provide a window into these towns and the reality their people face today. This reality is one that is pertinent to this moment in time and exemplifies humanity’s strength against forces that threaten our existence on this planet.

Drew Ducote is a photographer currently based in Brooklyn, NY. His photographic work incorporates geographic concepts like place, space, and the passage of time to craft a narrative through his images. Additionally, his work often highlights environmental issues and power struggles that are apparent in American society today.

drewducote.com

Guest Feature - Per-Olof Stoltz

My latest project The world is somewhere else is a documentation of Scandinavian suburban life. Just plain daily middleclass life as it turns out for a lot of people in Sweden. Not very exiting, daily life usually is’nt, but also very seldom documented. Like there’s a white spot between the stories from all those picturesque villages and violent city districts. The name of the place where I grew up is Rydebäck, a large suburbia situated along the coast of Öresund in the south of Sweden. I left it some 40 years ago to start my own life, and in this project I'm back to see what's changed since I left. As it turned out not that much has actually changed. Well, the decor has been updated of course, but otherwise it's the same middleclass dream based on prosperity and comfort.

Sometimes I get a feeling that a suburbia like Rydebäck is a place that isn’t in touch with the rest of the world. That the world is distant with all it’s conflicts, streams of refugees and crises. Everything and everyone seems molded into the same shape and nothing is allowed to disturb the harmony. The lawns are mowed, the kids sent to school and sometimes the neighbours come over for dinner. Saturdays are football practice, grocery shopping for the week to come and a carwash. The disasters and conflicts of the world are hardly noticed at all. Well, there’s usually a beggar sitting by the grocery store, but that is as far as the world reaches. But of course there must be those that care and act. They might be involved in politics, NGO’s or something similar in neighbouring places. But not in Rydebäck. That’s where you live. The world is somewhere else. 

Per-Olof Stoltz is a photographer living in Gothenburg, Sweden. He has worked as a professional photographer since 1989 in news, magazine and advertising, and has produced several projects that have been exhibited in Sweden. His latest project The world is somewhere else was also turned into a book. For the last +10 years he has used photography as his artistic outlet, not as his living. He has always been working in the photojournalistic/documentary realm. He believes that the image is a superior way to tell a story, to reach the viewer, and has a passion for showing those everyday lives, and signs of it, being lived quietly. Those stories that normally aren't told, unless disaster has struck. Because there's a story to be told everyday in life. 

postoltz.jimdofree.com

Raoul Ries Exhibition

URBI & ORBI Biennale de la photography et de la ville’ recently hosted 26 public exhibitions across 9 different locations in the city of Sedan. At the invitation of Clervaux - cité de l'image and in cooperation with the Urbi & Orbi Festival, a new series was created by MAP6 photographer Raoul Ries. During his artist residency Ries investigated questions about the density of the cityscape and the identity of the different neighbourhoods of Sedan. He travelled throughout the territory of the municipality of Sedan making images that question where the city centre becomes a residential suburb, and where commercial exploitation zones and rural spaces begin. Titled ‘Sedan, jusqu’aux limites de la ville’, his work was also on display at the festival. Alongside Ries was Luxemburg photographer Christian Aschman who presented the body of work ‘État des lieux, états d'un lieu. His images show compositions of urbanist activity that concentrate on strong contrasts, harmonious coexistence and pastoral constructions.

Richard Chivers - Degeneration

The photographs in Degeneration were made specifically in collaboration with the photographic collective Human Endeavour. Degeneration is an investigation of various housing estates across Britain. Each photographer chose a different area to photograph, these included Glasgow, Edinburgh, Salford, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, London, Cardiff, Southampton and Portsmouth. With Degeneration being a research led project, the objective was to take a critical look at the state of housing and regeneration in the 21st century, and the implications and complex nuances this may have on some of the poorest in society, reliant upon social housing. After several decades of neglect, consecutive governments have overseen the gradual demise and disappearance of social housing, due to 'Right To Buy' and a lack of new housing stock built, arguably fuelling the necessity to own rather than let that has instigated the artificial inflation of the housing market. This opens up many questions as to why this was allowed to happen, has fuelled the rise in homelessness and poverty and left the majority of people living in social housing trapped in so called 'sink estates’.

The post-war era Britain's population was faced with massive housing shortages. The existing housing stock was often disgracefully inadequate for even the most basic of needs. Modernist architecture with its close links to left wing ideology reflected a progressive solution to the practical and social issues of the time. At its height in the 1950s Social Housing was unquestionably a central pillar of Britain's regeneration following the devastation of the Second World War. Modern, and affordable, it represented an advancement in society; where the working classes were for the first time given the opportunity to live in a decent home. These projects and buildings were often striking exercises, bold and futuristic in their character and breathtaking in the scale of their ambition. Of course not everything proposed and executed by the town planners was to be warmly received. The high level philosophy and design of Corbusier was all too frequently brought crashing down to earth by the constraints of both economy and ability. Despite the misgivings, the new house or flat on the estate offered to millions the promise of a new beginning; a chance of escape from the almost medieval squalor endured by working class families through generations since time immemorial. But this wasn't only about a specific part of the demographic. Social Housing was intended for all, to encourage the integration of different echelons of society. As late as the mid 1970s you would find a wide range of people living on these estates. Our home was in a tower block in Sheffield's Norfolk Park. My father was a skilled tradesman, our neighbour a teacher: the commonality shared by the occupants of these developments was that of employment. These places were on the whole very positive places to live in, vibrant and open with a strong sense of community. However by as quickly as 1979 the political landscape in our country had changed forever. 

Our leaders decided that talk of society was no longer valid, the interests of the individual reigned supreme and through the Right To Buy scheme we were encouraged to take part in the dismantling of this great social project. Those who could took advantage of the schemes. The theory was straightforward enough. If you give people the opportunity to own something themselves then they will take greater care of it than the state ever could. Their emotional connection to their homes will be stronger. Individuals will be empowered, less docile more entrepreneurial, all will benefit. Within a decade most of the new property owners had sold up and moved on. Who was left behind? And what did it mean to be there? A council tenancy now carried with it a sense of failure and increasingly blame. Within the upwardly mobile 80's paradigm it's your own fault if you are poor, isn't it? Beyond the physical our psychological relationship towards these estates and buildings was quickly and profoundly altered. Far from being symbols of hope and egalitarianism, estates became places to avoid. The notoriety increased exponentially through the 1980s and 1990s. Names such as Moss Side or Red Road taking on almost mythic proportions, becoming as much feared and despised as the very slums and tenements which they replaced. The rampant excesses of the housing market in the late 1990s, which lead to an Englishman's home becoming not only his castle but also his retirement fund, all but finished the job started almost thirty years earlier.

The unabashed pursuit of wealth and self-interest seeming to prove that there really was no such thing as society after all. Housing Estates today have come to be associated with high levels of social stigma; they are seen as places of social exclusion. Homes to the forgotten under-classes, they provide the stage backdrop to our broken society neuroses. As compelling and titillating as any of Hogarth's scenes. But in the midst of all the media hyperbole and theorising what are these places? Even today are they not people's homes? Places where children play and belong, where treasured childhood memories are formed however repellant this may seem to middle class observers? What do we see when we look at these images of neglect and decay? How strikingly the physical neglect and abandonment of these homes and proud ambitions seems to reflect the disintegration and malaise of our society as a whole and perhaps even ourselves as individuals.

Degeneration by Richard Healy.

Guest Feature - Harry Compton

Since the 1st January 2021, I began documenting the experiences of rurality during the third lockdown, the lives lived and the world that has changed around them. While some have experienced little change in their day to day, others have found the pandemic a truly isolating experience. The book documents the changing nature of the rural idyll. It has been a very personal story, evoking juxtaposing feelings of melancholy and stoicism. The title of the book 'Off We Go Into The Bright Blue Yonder'‘ derives from a song I sang with an elderly gentleman George Warren as I walked him home from his friend Gerry's at 9:30pm in the evenings. For me this ritual optimised these feelings as we shuffled along the road in the middle of Winter up to his porch as he slowly let himself in to his house.

The book further explores the social consequences of lockdown that have effected the 'rural idyll'. From the; purchasing of second homes, the influx of digital nomads and the exacerbated use of remote services and consumption which are increasingly hollowing the social fabric of these communities. The process over the last eight months has seen me photograph and conduct interviews over the phone with a broad range of residents living in Tillington, home to 404 people in the South-East of England. Whilst it feels odd reflecting on such a harsh period of time as life begins to open again, it is important to rationalise the lives and realities that we are experiencing from the local to the national patterns in society.

Harry Compton is an Anthropology and Law graduate from the London School of Economics (LSE) who is about to embark on an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at LCC. His Interests lie in observing and trying to understand localities, the people in them and where they align their values and beliefs. His area of current focus is specific to accounts of Rural England, which he has been documenting for the last eight months.

harrycompton.com

Paul Walsh - Sleeplessness

For years I suffered from insomnia, caused by having an overactive mind when trying to sleep. I would lay in bed for hours with thoughts going around in my head, one leading into the next. Insomnia can be a lonely experience, even with somebody lying asleep next to you. One night I decided to go out walking to try and tire myself out. As I walked I saw that familiar places surrounding my home had transformed in appearance whilst under darkness, and usually busy streets were now eerily quiet and still. I became interested in the idea that places have a different existence at night when there is nobody around, and I began taking my camera out to record what I found. Whilst making photographs I was trying to find connections between what I was seeing outside in the darkness, and what would happen in my mind when I lay awake in bed.

Over the course of a summer I explored Brighton as well as the suburban peripheries and countryside. Using a local map, each night I would walk a different part of the town centre, coastline and countryside until I covered the entire area. For the project I used flash to illuminate objects in the darkness, it also meant that I didn’t have to carry a tripod. Walking at night is generally considered a risk, but I found it to be a calming and safe experience as there were very few people around, almost no traffic and I felt free to explore places without being watched.

Sleeplessness explores themes of insomnia, night walking and the aloneness that can be experienced during the night. The work is intended to draw parallels between the isolation of the nocturnal urban environment and what happens to the mind when we are unable to sleep.

Guest Feature - Jonathan Browning

Migrant workers are the backbone and unsung heroes of China’s rapid economic and urban transformation. Originating from the less developed provinces, they come to cities such as Shanghai in search of a higher wage and a better life. I made this work in response to the widening wealth gap in China. Some of these workers, who are crucial for the economy and infrastructure projects of China, would need a year's whole earnings (6 days a week, sometimes 7) to afford just 1 months rent for some of the apartments they help construct. They spend their working lifes within these large fenced off construction sites - working and sleeping in large dormitory style temporary buildings. I made these images when they were on their lunch break - when they might go outside away from the construction sites own canteen. Asking them to position themselves in front of the billboard style adverts that surround the site for a quick portrait. 

Jonathan Browning is a London-based photographer who also travels regularly to Shanghai and Beijing; his previous home of 10 years. He specialises in documentary, portrait, corporate + industrial photography and videography. He studied a BA (Hons) in Photojournalism, graduating in 2005, and in 2007 moved to China to establish himself as a freelance photographer, working for editorial and corporate clients; from shooting illegal coal mines and dissident artists to making a portrait of the president of Taiwan. His work has been published worldwide in international broadsheets, magazines, ads and annual reports.

jonbrowning.co.uk

Chloe Lelliott - Island

The concept of Utopia in every age has in some way been a variation of an ideal past, present or future. These ideas may be imaginary, mythical and religious, or have their foundations rooted in history and other civilisations before them.

Island explores ideas of the desire to be elsewhere, to escape from the here and now and be seduced by the exotic. A search to find a place that exists on the periphery of time and the borders of fiction. A picturesque landscape of wonder tinged with an ever-present shadow. An impossible desire to reach a paradise lost.

Guest Feature - Danilo Murru

A Small Plot of land is a series of 28 portraits taken on Creighton Road allotments in Tottenham, north London, during the spring of 2019. Tottenham is known to be one of the most diverse areas of the Capital. The allotments reflect this aspect of our neighbourhood beautifully. An allotment is a place where people come to spend time with their family and friends; cooking, eating and drinking; a place to feel at peace, a place to cry and a retreat from busy, stressful city life. It is hard work and tiring and can often feel relentless, but is also a rare opportunity to do something physical with your own bare hands, outside in the fresh air. It is surreal to be picking tomatoes and digging up potatoes in the middle of such a densely urban environment, and is even more surreal within the context of the one billion pound Tottenham Hotspurs stadium next door.

By nature the allotments are a fantastic example of sustainability. here, nothing goes to waste. Everything is reused again and again - to build a shed, a greenhouse or just to embellish a plot. The simple aim of this photographic project is to celebrate diversity, integration and the coming together of people from different walks of life to perform the simple human act of growing their own fruit and veg on a small plot of land.

Danilo Murru is a documentary photographer from Sardinia, living in London. His work broadly looks at urban, suburban and industrial landscapes and he occasionally engages in portrait photography set within an urban context.

danilomurrow

Guest Feature - Joel Goldstein

Captured on walks during the third lockdown, Cut Of The Land presents a meandering journey around a series of cuts that form the canal system between the rural suburbs of Southall, and Limehouse basin. Alongside the canals this project documents ideas of the man altered landscape. Having cut through twenty-two miles of land, in order to build the Paddington Arm and the Regent’s Canal, they shape the present environment both in the urban and rural areas. While there are hints to its old industrial past, the canals were usurped by the road and rail network, since then they have undergone a transformation into a site for leisure. They act as a green corridor, a boundary line between different boroughs, and in some places even a socio-economic divide. This project explores these different facets of the canals to present a unique perspective on north London and its waterways.

Based between London and the Sussex Coast, Joel Goldstein is a British/French photography student currently studying at the University of Brighton. His personal and academic practice is underpinned by the idea of a 'man altered landscape' through a combination of film and digital media. As well as exploring our changing relationship within the local landscape and marginal spaces, he produces work surrounding the elevation of the everyday banal into a fine art context. 

joelgoldstein

Aaron Yeandle - Home Sweet Home

From a young child I always felt that I was disjointed from the notion of home or even homeland. Furthermore, my family life was also somewhat fragmented, so the sense of belonging or a safe place to call home was a foreign experience, and was only amplified when I went to boarding school. The notion of what home means to myself still perplexes me.

My homes have always been transient and short-lived environments. Living in many different places, which I would call home at the time. However, in reality they were only places of experiences and perceptions of home. This body of work takes an autobiographical viewpoint of domesticity. It presents everyday snap shots of home interiors, of my in-between domicile lived spaces.

Guest Feature - Ryan Thomas

I have been working on a long term project documenting rave culture during my time at university. The project focuses on the spaces where raves take place at weekends, where those who have worked all week come to enjoy themselves. What interests me most at these events is the energy and raw emotion you can see on people's faces, there is always something different to look at. During raves everything happens so quickly and it’s easy to miss an opportunity to capture a moment before it disappears, so I have trained myself to be ready. I have mainly been working with flash to make subjects stand out in a way that natural or ambient light can’t do. This use of flash has crossed over into my photojournalism work. Due to the pandemic I haven't been able to photograph any events for over a year, but this has allowed me time to network and get in contact with various organisers to shoot future events across other areas of South Wales and England.

Ryan Thomas is currently studying an MA in Swansea focusing on photojournalism and documentary photography. He began his professional career three years ago shooting events, and continues to develop his portfolio.

ryanthomasphotography.com

Guest Feature - Tim Batten

X53 is a series of street portraits taken on the South Coast of Dorset in February 2020. For the project I bought a weekly bus ticket and travelled between Bournemouth and West Bay. Those featured in the project are people that I met on the street, and I eventually took their portrait within a few minutes of our encounter. My projects seem to form naturally based on the people that I meet, and I like to see them as small social artefacts of a certain place, at a certain period that may grow in interest over time.

Tim Batten is a 27 year old photographer who grew up in Dorset in the South West of England. He graduated from London College of Communication in 2016 with a BA in Photography. Since then he has been building up a portfolio of his personal work. In 2018 Tim moved to Stockholm, Sweden where he works as a photo assistant within the fashion industry.

timbatten

Mitch Karunaratne - The Cold Coast

Ownership of the remote archipelago of Svalbard, the northernmost settlement in the world with a permanent population, has been debated since the Napoleonic Wars. Until relatively though, hunters, fishermen, science expeditions and adventurers have jointly negotiated this fragile polar wilderness. With the discovery of mineral deposits this all changed. The Treaty on Svalbard was signed in Paris 9 February 1920, and since 17 July 1925 Svalbard has been part of The Kingdom of Norway. The treaty gave all forty signatory countries the right to freely access the islands, one of only two places in the world to be governed so

In recent years, in the light of climate change increasing the accessibility of oil and gas reserves in the Arctic Ocean, the treaty is a point of diplomatic dispute. Russian and Norway have affirmed their rights to the lands by maintaining a continuous settlement and mineral extraction sites. China is now increasingly interested in the region as it questions the sovereignty and ownership of the islands. Hydrocarbon extraction is set to remain an economic drive across this fragile polar region for decades to come.

Guest Feature - Vasilis Ntaopoulos

The Urban Pulp project is my attempt to describe the urban and suburban landscape of my hometown Larissa. My photographs are derived from the study of incongruous, banal and ordinary themes, which often remain unseen. Searching for some common characteristics in these thematically diverse images, the spectator can identify features that draw upon a certain photographic method. However, looking beyond the obvious absence of people or the soft light in each frame, I suggest that these images have something more in common: they are visions on how people perceive, appropriate and experience an urban place of the Greek provinces. 

Born in 1984, Vasilis Ntaopoulos is a social scientist and a photographer based in Larissa, Greece. His educational background derives from his studies in Social Anthropology (Msc) and Gestalt therapy. His relationship with photography started in 2013, and since then he has the chance to be a member of Larissa’s Photography Club and a member of “f plus” photography group. He has participated in several workshops and group exhibitions in Greece and his photography has been featured in online and printed publications. In 2019 his Urban Pulp project was included in the Young Greek Photographers section of Athens Photo Festival.

vasilis.com

Power Structures Exhibition

In June, taking place in Glasgow (5th – 6th June at Many Studios) and London (22nd- 26th June at Bermondsey Project Space), is a new photographic exhibition curated by Francisco Ibáñez Hantke and Luke O’Donovan. The show explores the ways in which socioeconomic and political powers shape the built environment. For more than a decade, over half of the world’s population has lived in cities, and between now and 2050 this is forecast to grow by another 2.5 billion people. This massive expansion of urban environments has been a key driver of the Anthropocene, with the footprint of contemporary living far overreaching city limits, and redefining the natural landscape in its entirety. The environmental transformation of recent years has gone hand in hand with social, political and economic upheaval across the globe. The Power Structures exhibition seeks to make the unseen and often intangible powers that drive these changes visible, through the ways in which they have come to dictate the forms of buildings and cities around the world. 

© Hashem Shakeri

© Catherine Hyland

© Luke O'Donovan

© Noelle Mason

© Tim Crocker

The exhibition features both emerging and established artists from around the world, who together provide an international perspective on some of the defining issues of our time. Whilst the exhibited works draw upon a variety of artistic techniques and cultural influences, there is an inescapable interconnectedness between the subject matter of images produced on opposite sides of the planet. Industry dominates the landscape from the marble quarries of the Atacama Desert, to the supersized hydroponic greenhouses of the Netherlands, or the disused cooling towers of West Yorkshire. Housing crises are displacing communities in Tehran just as in Los Angeles, whilst property speculation and constant densification are continuously rewriting the layout of cities from Santiago to Hong Kong. In an increasingly globalised society, borders and boundaries are more blurred than ever, and the urgent challenges facing humanity must be addressed on a worldwide scale. 

© Jana Sophia Nolle

© Marcos Zegers

© Francisco Ibáñez Hantke

© Cristobal Palma

© Tom Hegen

Curated by Francisco Ibáñez Hantke and Luke O’Donovan, Power Structures will be showing in Glasgow (Saturday 5th – Sunday 6th June) at Many Studios as part of the Architecture Fringe ‘(un)learning’ programme, and in London (Tuesday 22nd June – Saturday 26th June) at Bermondsey Project Space as part of the London Festival of Architecture ‘Care’ programme. The exhibition will be accompanied by a programme of events, aimed at expanding upon the exhibition topics and engaging new audiences. This will follow on from a series of online talks around the exhibition themes held as part of last year’s Zoomed In Festival. Be sure to check out either, or both shows if you can!

powerstructur.es

Guest Feature - Andreas Bleckmann

Having grown up in a sleepy suburb of Munster, Westphalia, I moved to New York and lived in a former dance hall in Harlem with a group of artists in the mid 80’s. I managed to scratch a living as a painter and decorator, but I always knew I needed to create imagery in some way. The pivotal moment was when I went to see the Garry Winogrand retrospective at the MOMA. I realized that the incredible and largely ignored people around me, could, in a small way, become visible and significant through photography. With my earnings I purchased my very first camera (Nikon FE2 with a 28mm lens) and started taking pictures. I am not a great verbal communicator and struggle with my hearing, but I soon found a natural fluency through my photography. During this period, I also assisted numerous established commercial photographers who taught me about lighting and the mechanics of my trade. After a few years of studio assisting, I felt I was ready to create my own portfolio, a simple collection of black and white studio portraits. I moved to East London in the 90’s, the then, epicentre for new emerging photographers. Soon after I was booked to shoot for The Face magazine and from there I had a long spell of editorial success shooting fashion and portraits, working with many international clients & leading magazines. 

In 2017 my partner and I bought an 1835 run down house in Hastings, East Sussex. Whilst renovating the building, which is ongoing, I always find a little time to take informal portraits of the people I see in my local area, many of whom I have got to know very well. Nothing is staged, I only shoot with natural light in square format which I find is the perfect proportion for me to show just enough environment.

Andreas Bleckmann is a German born photographer who spent his formative years on the streets of Manhattan with his 35mm camera. After working as a fashion photographer in London, he now lives by the sea in the fishing town of Hastings on the south coast of England. 

andreasbleckmann.com