This year UK development agency Photoworks has been hosting Photography Socials at Blackpool Community Darkroom. Now they’re on the hunt for new photography champions in the town.
Situated upstairs at Aunty Social on the second to last Thursday of each month, everyone is warmly welcomed to the current Photoworks-supported Photography Socials at Blackpool Community Darkroom. Local photographers Donna Hannigan, Helen Kay, Herny Iddon, and Claire Griffiths run the events which aim to explore how we might platform the strong relationship Blackpool has with the accessible creative act of the photographic image.
Since the dawn of the picture postcard where Blackpool postcard makers The Saidman Brothers studio was based in Blackpool, to the mid-century exploration of the working classes via The Mass Observation Project, where writers and image makers such as Humphrey Spender toured Blackpool, the town has long been a fascinating subject for photographers.
Blackpool is used to being looked at through a lens, its long relationship with photography and being photographed has attracted the likes of Henri Cartier Bresson, Don McCullen, Martin Parr and Shirley Baker. It feels like a good time for Blackpool to raise its photography aspirations. In more recent times The Royal Photographic Society hosted the 100 Heroines show with Hive Arts. The pop up show travelled from Chelsea to a Blackpool High Street to feature the highest concentrate of Blackpool based female image makers.
With photography perhaps one of the more accessible visual practices, it sometimes struggles to be considered an art form, perhaps its commercial cross-overs, and scientific and journalistic history form contention amongst photographers and creatives discussing where it is best placed. Is it technical or a service activity, a domestic pastime, or something else? But as a creative act, its accessibility is beautiful as nearly anyone can create a meaningful image connected to powerful stories. Domestic albums exist digitally and physically for almost everyone, capturing important moments in time. Historic documents of social activity, graduations and first days of school, holidays, family celebrations, and nights out. The social value of photography is prominent as photography begins to recognise its place as a tool for sharing experiences, connectivity, and conversations.
Culture and Blackpool are often debated too. For Blackpool our long history of performance is celebrated – a plethora of showpeople gracing our stages with Blackpool still on the circuit for popular bands usually advertised by the photograph.
It is no surprise that the first exhibition at Blackpool’s Showtown Museum is photographic with Andy Hollingsworth’s I Shoot Comedians – a gorgeous assortment of portraits, and associated collected ephemeral that is personal to both the people that view them, the subject and the photographer themselves.
With this in mind earlier this year Blackpool welcomed Photoworks partnership to the town with their Photo Champions opportunity. Photoworks is an international platform, global in reach, and has provided opportunities for artists and audiences since 1995. While they do not have a physical venue, their online channels are always open. Their programme brings new experiences to audiences and opens up new ways to encounter photography. A registered charity and the only organisation with a national remit for photography in England, their work is supported by public funding through Arts Council England’s National Portfolio. Their partners include Historic England, English Heritage, Jerwood Charitable Organisation, and Council of British Archaeology amongst many others.
Their Photo Champions initiative focuses on areas such as Barnsley, Dudley, Portsmouth, and Blackpool, and has been working with Blackpool Community Darkroom to host Photography Socials alongside curren Blackpool Photography Champions, Henry Iddon and Claire Griffiths. So far the socials have hosted Garry Cook of Lancashire Photography Festival, Richard Oughton discussing Northern Soul documentary, a Photography Quiz, and most recently Polly Braden, a London-based photographer whose current work seeks to explore young people’s experiences of coastal regions. Blackpool Sixth Form Students also presented their film, Beyond The Boardwalk, which demonstrated Blackpool’s impact on creatives living in the town.
Photoworks now presents an exciting opportunity for all budding photographers in Blackpool to submit an image for their Photography Weekender.
Whether you are a student, enthusiast, commercial, professional or amateur photographer and whether your shoot social, documentary, portrait, landscapes or events, Blackpool Photo Champions want to see your images.
Further, if you have used the Community Darkroom or want to scan images, Helen Kay is available to help scan your images and submit them to Photoworks Open Call – e: [email protected]
Apply here
The Photoworks Weekender brings together a dynamic contemporary photography programme across four days throughout Brighton. Photoworks invites people in Blackpool to submit one image each, with no theme.
The Photoworks Curatorial team will curate a selection of images, representing all Photo Champion locations, that will be shown as a slideshow during the Weekender.
Deadline 4 October.
Look out for our future Blackpool Community Darkroom Socials supported by Photoworks or register for the mailer: [email protected]
17th October: Tessa Bunney
For over 30 years, Tessa Bunney has photographed rural life, working closely with individuals and communities to investigate how the landscape is shaped by humans. From hill farmers near her home in North Yorkshire to Icelandic puffin hunters, from Romanian nomadic shepherds to Lincolnshire flower farmers her projects reveal the fascinating intricacies of the dependencies between people, work and the land.
Recent work includes ‘Made out of Orchards’ which was commissioned, published and exhibited by the Martin Parr Foundation and ‘Going to the Sand’, an ongoing personal project collaborating with Morecambe Bay fishermen which was published by Another Place Press in 2023.
Booking Essential – Link below:
Photography Social – Tessa Bunney Tickets, Thu, Oct 17, 2024 at 6:00 PM | Eventbrite
11th November: Kristel Trow
The Russian Doll is Kristel’s most intimate work to date, a series of new black and white photographic portraits of women who have experienced all types of violence: domestic, state, health.
Inspired by the wartime photographers who carried their own portable darkrooms, the photographs have been developed in a specially designed camera, which sits in the belly of a Russian doll. Kristel was given a Russian Doll as a child, a recognisable object and a popular souvenir, and kept it until she moved into a women’s refuge herself. During this time her view of the object changed it became ‘a symbol of femininity and fertility and a caricature of how women are sometimes viewed and treated; like a personal ornament that can be picked up and put down.’
Kristel has collaborated with women for this series of portraits which captures their intimate stories. The installation takes you on an inner journey from trauma to recovery and highlights shared experiences through these women’s voices. Kristel has been working in close collaboration with women all over the country, within Wales and further afield such as Oxford, Dartmoor and the Eden Project, Cornwall. Each place has been chosen carefully with each collaborator, as a place that means something to each of these women.
Booking Essential – link below:
Photography Social – Kristel Trow Tickets, Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 6:00 PM | Eventbrite
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