Publications
Sony World Photography Awards 2009 Book
30/06/09 17:42
The Sony World Photography Awards 2009 Book.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting my copy of the Sony World Photography Awards Book for weeks now and I’m pleased to say that it finally arrived today. The winning images in the book were selected by a jury comprising of world-class photographers, curators and agents. The 2009 edition focuses upon the environment through the lenses of Bruce Davidson, Stuart Franklin, Cédric Delsaux and Brent Stirton. The book features all the winners, with comments from the jury members, and features a retrospective dedicated to Marc Riboud, recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The SWPA 2009 book is one of my favorite photography books that I’ve ever had the pleasure to own and I’m delighted to have my work feature alongside such fantastic imagery taken by a remarkable selection of contemporary photographers. I would certainly recommend this book to any aspiring photographers or to anyone just interested in taking a look at some rather wonderful photography. This is the first time that I’ve been published in a dedicated photography book and I couldn’t be happier that it was in the Sony World Photography Awards book with my own personal work.
If you’d like to order a copy of the book then you may do so through the publisher (Verlhac Editions) via email: orders@verlhaceditions.com
Book Specifications
Over 800 colour illustrations
240 pages, 26cm x 30cm portrait
Main Text: 50,000 characters
Captions: 20,000 characters
Hardcover with jacket
ISBN: 978-2-916954-43-1
Retail Price: 49.00€
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Bloomfield Talks: Book Launch & Exhibition 2009
10/05/09 17:55
Bloomfield Talks Photography Exhibition By Yannick Dixon. Saturday 9th May 2009.
I was asked to join the community based arts project Bloomfield Talks in August 2008 by internationally renowned artist Simon Grennan. Bloomfield Talks is a year-long oral history project commissioned by Blackpool Council and ran between July 2008 and May 2009. The project focuses upon the experiences of people who have connections with the Bloomfield, Foxhall, Revoe and near South Shore area of Blackpool.
At the heart of Bloomfield Talks was a team of local volunteers brought together specifically for the project. Ranging in age from the late teens to the late seventies, the volunteers engaged other local people in conversations and activities focusing on their daily lives in the area. The volunteers documenting these exchanges in writing, pictures and audio recordings, creating a new archive of records about ordinary people’s lives. There really are some great photographs taken by local people over the years that say so much about life in the area and I’m really pleased to have my pictures shown beside them. In February 2009, the volunteers edited and published the new archive as a book and will given away as a gift to the five thousand households in the area. All of the original material will be lodged with Blackpool Libraries and the North West Sound Archive. This archive is available online.
I was asked if I’d like to put together a photography exhibition of my Blackpool photographs to compliment the launch of the Bloomfield Talks book on Saturday 9th May 2009. I exhibition included a few of the photographs that feature in the book as well as some from my MA project ‘Blackpool: An Unimagined Space?’. The images were printed on an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and then mounted onto Aluminium (wooden frames on reverse). There were sixteen photographs in all; ranging from A1 to A4 size. It was a great opportunity to get a response from local people about my work and to support such a fantastic event.
I also got the chance to take some more portraits during the book launch.
Although there was so much going on with the launch of the book and the photography exhibition, I think that this photograph I took of two old ladies standing outside the church is my favourite image from the day. The bad weather meant that more and more people came off the streets to see what all the fuss was about. These two ladies had come to see what the Bloomfield Talks project was all about and were braving the weather to watch a group of school children banging drums out on the street in celebration of the event.
I’ve included one of the pages that feature my photographs below.
To view a previous Bloomfield Talks blog post click on the link below:
Bloomfield Talks Tea Party
To view the Bloomfield Talks gallery click on the link below:
Commissioned Work
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Blackpool: An Unimagined Space? Book Preview
02/03/09 17:34
A preview of my photography book ‘Blackpool: An Unimagined Space?’
“Everyone has heard of Blackpool, and it projects, enduringly, a permissive but unthreatening image of proletarians at play. That the image is unduly simple goes without saying, and there are many intersecting Blackpools, including the residential, respectable and poverty stricken ones, behind and to either side of the pullulating, pulsating sea-front of the Golden Mile and Pleasure Beach, living out a more prosaic existence alongside the glitter and gowns of the night-clubs and cabarets which represent a more recent dominant image of Blackpool’s pleasure identity”.
- Walton, J.K (1998)
The production of my series of documentary photographs exploring life on Blackpool’s seaside fringe has undergone many transformations and alterations since I began the project back in July 2006. My approach has always been organic, free to adapt in response to the town’s ever-changing topography and characteristics. Inspired by many aspects of the town’s unique character, cultural heritage and history the project documents the mélange of experiences and ‘vistas’ that I’ve encountered throughout my daily life by the sea. Central to my approach was my desires to not only record these experiences, but to celebrate the medium of documentary photography itself.
In many ways, Blackpool and documentary photography go hand in hand. For instance; during the Berlin Photography Festival ‘After The Fact’ in September 2005, Jan-Erik Lundström commented that the current state of documentary photography is “both affirmative and disillusioned, pragmatic and utopian; is often impure, hybrid, layered, combinatory, even internally contradictory or unresolved”. Lundström goes on to say that the medium is “on the one hand, a struggle to maintain public space, to sustain active public discourse and collective dialogue, to find or establish a place where it is possible to talk, speak and listen, and on the other hand, a mode of artistic praxis engaged in art as a vehicle for knowledge production”. This idea that documentary photography has the ability to communicate, in a complex manner, the world around us is one that I considered an important notion throughout the production of the Blackpool project.
The ‘Blackpool: An Unimagined Space?’ book features over twenty of the most striking and revealing documentary photographs I’ve taken during the project, covering everything from the local built environment to the spectacle of live performance on the promenade. There is also an introduction to the series in the book that offers further insight into the approach and production of the project as a whole. Each hardcover book is made to special order and produced in full colour (measuring 28 cm x 21.5 cm). Softcover books are also available on request at a discounted price.
If you would like further information on the book or would like to pre-order one, please contact me for details and prices.
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