BOOKS
Merthyr Rising Tom Johnson, Self-published tom-johnson.co.uk
Tom Johnson is a rising star in fashion and portraiture; born in 1991, he dropped out of art college after a year but has already published work in i-D, The Telegraph, It’s Nice That, Vice, Dazed and BJP. In January 2015 Vice made a documentary about his work for its series Picture Perfect; in April he was shortlisted for the D&AD Next Photographer Award; and in May he was selected for an exhibition of up-and-coming photographers at Downstairs at Mother. He shot Merthyr Rising with the stylist Charlotte James, who comes from the town, taking ordinary people who live in the post-industrial area and shooting them in high-fashion and vintage items. A personal project celebrating the strong characters and vibrant community of an area hard-hit when the mines closed in the 1980s, it was exhibited at Box Shoreditch and is now transformed into a self-published book. Johnson cites British realist cinema as an influence, and his stripped-back aesthetic is clear in Merthyr Rising, which teams images of the models with shots of the nearby landscape. From retired nurses to little kids, Johnson’s choice of models is eccentric but it works, creating a fashion story that also works outside the usual industry confines. Two of the models, sisters Kyra and Evie, proved so inspirational that Johnson returned to shoot them for Pylot Magazine, itself a rising force in fashion.
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