5 minute read
The everyday uncanny – photographer
THE EVERYDAY
Photography
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Courtesy of Edward Thompson
Photographer Ed Thompson has been taking pictures in Kent for two decades and is publishing a new book to mark this milestone. He talks to the Recorder about his travels around the county and what inspires him to click his shutter
How did you discover photography?
I wanted to study film as a student, but back in the 90s it was very expensive. Some of my favourite film directors were photographers – Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott – so I thought I’d try being a photographer first. I grew up in Folkestone and photographed the usual clichés when I was a teenager: the sea, bands, sunsets, graveyards, people making homemade street luges (sledges on wheels) and riding down Dover Hill at night. During my first year at university my work was selected for a group show at the famous photography festival Les Recontres d’Arles in France. I was 20 years old and hanging out with some of the most famous photographers in the world. It was a character-defining experience. After graduating, my first break came through the Folkestone Jobcentre working as a holiday camp photographer on the Isle of Sheppey, New Romney and Marlie. That was 16 years ago and I now freelance for clients including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Telegraph Magazine. I am also a senior lecturer at UCA Rochester.
What got you hooked on photography?
Growing up in the 90s, in the blossoming of a full-tilt celebrity culture, I saw how people lost track of what was important and, more importantly, what was real. In the daily grind we forget how inherently magical daily existence is. I found that I could photograph everyday
UNCANNY
life in such a way that it became significant. It seemed to show how I felt. I do believe there is something special that happens when you use a camera to capture moments and create order out of the chaos of the everyday real world.
Your book spans two decades in which time much has changed. How has that expressed itself in your work?
▲ “There’s lots of interesting things
happening here. The relationship between the man, the dog, the seagull and the sign. I won’t pick apart what it means to me, it would be like a musician explaining what their song lyrics mean. What I will say is that the dog was blind.”
years. But that is part of the magic of photography: the ability to distil time into a fraction of a second. Early on I focused on what you could say were fringe interests and subcultures. I felt that our culture in Britain in the 90s had become a monoculture, or at best polarised like it always had been; from the dualism of mods and rockers, punk and disco it was then lad culture and alternative culture. I tried to show different alternative hobbies and pasttimes away from the mainstream. Now in the 21st century it is no longer ►
binary, the mainstream is only a trickle. There are so many subcultures and that’s what I’ve always been interested in. Looking back at my photography through this book, the key thing is that my visual style has stayed the same for 20 years; through some bizarre process I’ve managed to tap into my own vision which means that photographs I took two decades ago have the same quality as photographs I take today. It is the ultimate goal of most photographers, to express how they see. No one else truly sees the world the way you do.
What can people expect from the book?
In-a-Gadda-Da-England will be my third book and is about the soul of England and how we got to where we are. The photos deal with nostalgia, pasttimes, class, British nationalism, all things which led to Brexit. There are a lot of England flags. By bringing these photographs together, the characters I have met meet each other: twenty years of things I’ve witnessed in my life distilled into moments and placed in a book. There are beautiful and weird photographs. Lots of the work has been made in Thanet over the past five years. By continually taking photographs in Kent I have learnt to repeatedly fall in love with the same place. The work hasn’t changed, I’ve always focused on everyday life, and these photographs come together to paint a broad canvas of English life at the turn of the 21st century.
Photographs are central to our culture and everyday communication, and there are lots of ways to reach an audience. Why a book?
With social media it is so easy to take and share pictures. I first joined Twitter when I was photographing the London riots in 2011 as a means of quickly gathering information and also sharing information, letting other photographers know what was happening in the streets. Although I find myself often in hyper-social situations I prefer to be more of a photographic hermit, working away steadily and then releasing what I’ve made when I’m ready. As a documentary photographer I produced dozens of independent photo-essays I would then sell to magazines as features. By 2011 it was clear that this wasn’t going to work anymore, the industry had raced to the bottom and many magazine stories were being put together with stock photography for pennies. So I adapted. I edited this new book from work made in between assignments, street photography and also a couple of shots from projects. My plan is that this book is the first of a series of photo-books of my work. It’ll be limited to 500 copies in this first edition.
What inspires you?
In the beginning I was inspired by what my eyes were drawn to, then I started picking subject matters that were ideologically driven. My favourite photographers are Diane Arbus and Joel Sternfeld.
In-a-Gadda-da-England is being crowdfunded with an early bird discount rate when it goes live in September. For more details visit edwardthompson.co.uk
▲ The Isley trader
washed ashore nearly hitting the Anthony Gormley sculpture in Margate.
◤ “This photograph
represents a moment: it seems the man is about to walk into the bear as he is looking in the wrong direction. This is what interests me as a photographer; building up narrative using larger themes than perhaps are what are formally presenting themselves at the time.” “This was a lucky find. Just being able to be in the right place at the right time, sometimes that is enough. It’s an absurd photograph.”
▼ Bins concealed in
topiary.
