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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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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Tags: Blackpool,Photography Book,Publications