#helpdench : Book Funding Appeal

Hello! I'm Peter Dench, and I'm trying to raise $£$£$ to publish my first photographic book; England Uncensored is a decade of photographing the English, a laugh out loud, primary colored romp through this often badly behaved nation. It is not an idealized brochure of a green and pleasant land, it is the truth, warts and all.

The fundraising is being supported on the Emphas.is platform, click for details and a mini preview of what to expect. There are also rewards for each and every one of you that backs the book.

Help me get there, #HELPDENCH

In Conversation With Jocelyn Bain Hogg

Jocelyn Bain Hogg (JBH) is sweating. He reaches for a small bottle of Trumper's extract of lime and depresses a cooling mist. A polka-dot Paul Smith handkerchief is flourished from the pocket of his Adam of London suit to dab the beads from his lofty brow. I sip my can of Heineken. It's touching 28C in Le Couvent des Minimes, where we both have an exhibition as part of the 23rd Visa pour l'Image (VPL) festival of photojournalism held annually in Perpignan, France. I'm representing England; JBH, Wales and Scotland. (He has never felt English, ever, and admits to sniffling with pride watching the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.) Together we are flying the exhibitor’s flag for Britain. Waiting to be interviewed for French TV, pleasantries are exchanged in the way that British men do. Our respective journeys to this privileged position has been very different.

The Family
©Jocelyn Bain Hogg/VII Photo Agency

Solely his mother brought up JBH, an only child, after his adopted father died when he was a baby. The young JBH applied himself early to the theatrical, playing Robin Hood aged seven, and later winning the prestigious House Colours for his portrayal of Phyllis the Maid in the George Bernard Shaw farce, Passion, Poison and Pretrification, performed at the equally prestigious Lancing College (that he describes as a bear-pit). A youth of reciting Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot unravelled before unearthing his fathers old Rolleiflex persuaded JBH to turn his back on successful applications to the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and the University of Oxford. Like many photographers before him, the Siren sounds of the click of the shutter and turn of the film winder had lured him to a lifetime behind the lens.

Five years his junior, while JBH, aged 18, was having his work published in Harpers and Queen and on the cover of the British Journal of Photography, I was still throwing chewed soggy paper to the ceiling of Mr Speedy's math class. Magnum Photos Agency photographer David Hurn, had already insulted JBH; a right of passage that would take me another 23 years. He advised JBH put his pretty pictures in a box and show them to his girlfriend. Perhaps Hurn played a hand in JBH’s unsuccessful application to Magnum. The criticism seems unabated. In 2010, at an exhibition of JBH’s project, Muse, at Third Floor Gallery in Cardiff, Hurn greeted him with the words, “Love the shirt, hate the show.”

MUSE
©Jocelyn Bain Hogg/VII Photo Agency

I first became aware of JBH attending my first VPL festival in 2002. I had a screening of my project, Drinking of England. On arrival, the talk of the town was still about the stately Brit who had entertained the crowds the previous year with photographs from his book, The Firm. First published in 2001, the work documented the criminal underworld, from exile in Tenerife to the broad spectrum of activity in the UK. Images of topless girls, gripped guns, grabbed buttocks, knuckle-duster neck chains and 6-inch cigars introduce us to the fierce world of the celebrity thug. The book has since become a cult classic. The question everyone asked was: How could this man, take these types of photographs?

The interim decade have seen our paths cross many times. We have briefly shared a commercial agent, exhibited at the same gallery, reciprocated nods across the dance floor at parties, bowed our heads at the funeral of Princess Diana and traded advice over email. Occasionally, I've been victorious competing on commissions; JBH has crushed my ambition for others. After a decade of friendly competition, a few weeks before the VPL festival we meet for a drink, to declare a truce and say, “Well done us, we are still doing it” and agree to form a coalition. I can't help thinking I've been allocated the Nick Clegg role.

Back in Le Couvent des Minimes, the television crew questions JBH; "Are you a gangster?" No. "Are you an expert on British crime?" No. “Did you constantly find yourself in danger?” No. "How does someone like you get to take these types of photographs?" The questions are understandable and the rumours are delicious. One recounts a man owed money, tired of waiting to be paid, presented the debtor with a copy of The Firm, indicating that he knew the author. The debt was immediately honoured. Another anecdote: A woman at her wits' end after the relentless bullying of her daughter at school asks if JBH’s ‘friends’ would be able to help? The bullying ceased.

I leave the French exchange and stride into JBH's exhibition. The first thing I notice is his contributor photograph, credited to fellow VII Photo Agency snapper, Seamus Murphy. A sartorially crafted JBH sits perched on a bar looking every bit the dandy, a cigarette dangles between the fingers. My contributor photograph is a self-portrait, urgently requested by the Dorset Echo, I had hauled myself out of bed hours after returning from assignment to Kirkuk, Iraq. The result is a baggy eyed, unshaven Dench, with what looks like an enormous Mohican.

The claustrophobic sweaty room suits the content of JBH’s photographs. Big men tilt their big shaven heads for whispered conversations in Knightsbridge bars. Jewels sparkle, caught in the cut-through-the-dark ring-flash. Personalities clash, the clothes are brash, men snort coke through cash. Women touch tongues and tattoos tell tales of gangs. The images are from his new project, The Family; IT IS NOT A FOLLOW UP TO THE FIRM!

The Family

©Jocelyn Bain Hogg/VII Photo Agency

The VPL press office is working us hard. In between my own dense itinerary, I try to catch up with JBH for an interview. I turn up for scheduled talks of his that he hasn't and stand alone as others are rescheduled. Journalists text me to ask if I’ve seen my British chum. We cross paths briefly in Cafe de la Poste, the unofficial festival HQ for a few grabbed words over Pastis. At one point during the week, he kicks me up the backside and I capture video footage of him calling me a w****r. The cracks in the England, Scotland-Wales coalition start to show and the sparring is welcome.

Back in London, battered but not beaten, I recoup, regroup, and head down to the home of photojournalism, the offices of Foto8 near Old Street in London. How lucky am I? The home of photojournalism, just down the road from where I live. It could have been in Nantucket; or worse, Grimsby. I'm meeting JBH at 3pm and have arrived early to look at a PDF of the The Family and chat with Foto8 director, Jon Levy. I ask the question. "How does this man take these types of photographs?" Levy explains: “It's the demeanour of JBH, he's not trying to be someone he isn’t, the bon viveur, pushy-in-a-good-way, Errol Flynn character of our day you see, is the man you get.”

JBH arrives around 4pm after a prolonged meeting with his bank manager and folds himself into a chair. The anthropologist explorer of British society explains the villains of The Family are guys who just know who they are and they don't mind being photographed; the police already know who they are. If The Family is not a follow-up to The Firm, the style certainly is. The continuation of grainy black-and-white pictures delivers the feeling of a sequel. Given the opportunity for a career in movies as a young man, JBH had opted for stills photography; his “Passport to move freely and document the world without the intervention of camera crews, set designers, bulky equipment and, above all, the necessary contrivance of film-making.” With the development of lightweight HD video cameras, would JBH now consider shooting footage? He would, but this would not have been possible shooting The Family, those silent conversations caught by the stills camera, need to remain just that.

The Family
©Jocelyn Bain Hogg/VII Photo Agency

The images in The Family, introduce us to the world of villainy post Joe Pyle Snr. Pyle, from South London, was the head of a crime family who counted the Kray twins among his friends. He died of motor neurone disease in 2007. The work documents the four ‘brothers’ bequeathed the Pyle Snr. crime patch; where these scions of the Pyle family compete with international gangs and comply with others to maintain their heritage. Along with images of paying respect at the cemetery, wakes, communions, and unlicensed boxing matches, we find the protagonists relaxing at home in suburban Surrey: watching Chelsea on TV, fooling about with the kids, playing basketball in the yard. Photography is JBH’s family and books his children. Books matter, they are lasting; his legacy. They make a statement. Two more books are planned for 2012. The joke is that if The Family isn’t published before Christmas, JBH would not be celebrating it; but no one seems to be laughing. I lighten the mood and suggest that Foto8, who will publish the book, release the slogan, “Publishing books, saving lives”. But no one seems to be laughing. Back home, I check my bank balance, Christmas list, and pencil in for all my friends and relatives, 'a copy of Jocelyn Bain Hogg’s The Family'.

The Dench Diary Live: 'The Home of Photojournalism' from Hungry Eye TV on Vimeo.

Jocelyn Bain Hogg will be exhibiting The Family at White Cloth Gallery, Leeds UK, Spring 2012.

Copies of The Family is available to buy from Foto8 publishing including limited editions.

A version of this feature first appeared in issue #2 of Hungry Eye magazine, copies available to buy here.

Dench Diary : September/October 2011

1st - 5th “Peter Dench!” It’s the moment I’ve dreamt of for nine-years, Jean-Francois Leroy is striding towards me. The director of the Visa pour L’Image festival of photojournalism has granted me an exhibition and I’m in Perpignan, France, to promote the work. It’s been a dizzying whirl of television, web and press interviews, I’m emotional; vulnerable. I quickly recap what this bearded messiah of the genre has done for me. In addition to the exhibition, five of my projects have featured in the evening screenings over eight years. It is time to show in one overbearing outpouring what it all means and I man up for a hug. JFL opts for the handshake. It’s too late and his hand is lodged uncomfortably between our ribcages.

“Peter Dench!” It’s the moment I’ve been dreading. Jean-Francois Leroy is again striding towards me. I consider legging it, scuff to a halt and offer my hand. He grabs my shoulders and pulls me in for a double-cheek-kiss. I manage to detour my hands around his waste and squeeze.

I am en route with all the attending festival exhibitors and some industry nobs for a celebratory lunch in the countryside. Christopher Morris, Paolo Pellegrin and Photojournalism’s Father Christmas, Gary Knight, are all in attendance. The talk is of Libya and which flak jackets offer the least chaffing. I think of Blackpool and the Speedos I shall wear. The bendy bus transporting us rolls around the roundabouts and swings through the villages. My back is to the driver. The festival is a boozy affair which I can handle. The Dench stomach, however, has a weakness for road travel. I’m directly facing former Magnum President, Jonas Bendiksen and Pellegrin. To my right is war photographer Yuri Kozyrev, Bertrand Gaudillere sits stoically still. The boyishly fresh Ed Ou bounces around. I start to dry heave. Black spots splatter the eyeballs. I am about to throw up, the bus stops, I lurch into the sunshine and manage to swallow my shame.

I ease myself from the emasculating arms of VII snapper, Marcus Bleasdale, shake him a warm goodbye and return to my seat outside Cafe de la Poste, the unofficial festival HQ, where I decide to call it a night. There is peripheral movement, the perk-up presence of Jyothy Karat sweeps me up from my seat for one last hurrah. Walking into the official end of festival party is a shameful affair. I’m advised to purchase a plastic beaker and exchange some euros for drink tokens. I wave my badge and enunciate that “I’m an exhibitor and must be directed immediately to the VIP area - and the free drinks to which I’ve become accustomed." I’m informed as only the French know how, that there will be no more free drinks. The ride is over. I’m so tired, at the party I start to hallucinate and become convinced the guests have been instructed not to let me leave and the whole evening has been arranged to reveal I’m a fraud and the exhibition a hoax. In a moment of panic, I dart unapologetically from one conversation and bolt for the exit.

18th In August, I was auctioned at the London Street Photography Festival fundraiser for £420 to Mr Proudfoot. Today I spend a pleasant afternoon walking around the Barbican taking portraits of him and his partner at some of their fondest locations.

21st I knew this day would come. Frankly, I’m surprised it took so long. After the Perpignan high, the inevitable low; and it hits hard. I’ve followed up on the stack of inch-high business cards, read the brochures and clicked all the links. The money has gone. I have no work. Copper leaves corkscrew in the Autumnal wind, I flip the lid on a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream and sip out the day in my FCUKs.

23rd I’ve made a rookie mistake and allowed a window for conversation to open with my taxi driver. I don’t want to have a conversation with my taxi driver. It’s 4.30am. I especially don’t want to have a conversation with this taxi driver, who is Lithuanian and keen to practise his English. To be fair he needs to practise. I’m on my way to San Sebastian Film Festival in northern Spain where I have some photographs in the group show, Letters From Europe. Arriving at Stansted, the taxi driver explains how tough it is to earn money and his reliance on tips to feed his family - all delivered in perfect English.


On 7th September 2010 I received an email;

Dear Peter, My name is Lola Mac Dougall.

No one called Lola Mac Dougall would be contacting me unless they wanted me to send them £5000 after being robbed abroad or wanting to meet for fun, fantasy and frolics in North London. I had pressed delete, had second thoughts, retrieved the email and continued to read;

"I represent Limonkraft, a Spanish non-profit association which is devoted to culture and development, and works closely with photography. We are currently implementing a project co-financed by the European Commissions Daphne III programme. Our project deals with second-generation migrant girls from North Africa and South Asia living in Spain, France, Italy, UK, The Netherlands and Denmark. Specifically, we are documenting their social integration into their “host” countries, as well as forms of violence and discrimination to which they may be vulnerable. Given your previous photographic works, we believe the proposal may be of interest to you."

It was. Landing in Bilbao I meet Johann Rousellot, who is representing France in the show. On the bus to San Sebastian, we discuss the strategies applied to shoot our respective projects. Arriving at the exhibition hosted at the city’s Ernest Lluch Cultural Centre, is a little disappointing, it has the 'some-pictures-on-the-wall-of-a-local-library' kind of feel. The event kicks off with an hour of academic findings before a Q&A with the photographers. I throw a posture of seriousness and nod my head when I think I ought to. My beer-massaged thoughts meander across the mainly female audience. They have more facial hair than I have. I’ve never been in a room with so many women I’ve not fancied before.

“PETER, would you like to explain your strategy for the programme and your documentation of the actions to combat all types of violence against children, young people and women in the UK and all aspects of this phenomenon including violence in the family, violence in schools and other establishments, violence at work, commercial sexual exploitation, genital mutilation, health repercussions, trafficking in human beings and rehabilitation of perpetrators?”

At the exhibition after party, one of the curators asks “Was I too scared to apply the humour and irony evident in much of my work to this particular project?”

24th Getxophoto 2011 (pronounced Getcho) is a superbly innovative festival on the coast about 100km east of San Sebastian. Huge murals hang from buildings. Recycle bins are photo-wrapped. You can peep at some projects and even put you beer on others. Last year the theme was ‘Leisure’ and I had seven images from my Drinking of England project printed on around 5,000 coasters. How my work should be viewed - through the bottom of a glass. I wasn’t able to make the trip and have used this opportunity of proximity to take a look at this years theme: In Praise of the Elderly. During lunch with the festival team, we suck back crisp Txakoli, (a slightly sparkling, very dry white wine that I’m horrified to find out, has a low alcohol content), nibble regional sausage and discuss next years theme - Faith.

Does Faith exist? Yes It does. How do I know this? Because I spent a week in the town. (Well I was supposed to spend a week in the town but the only bar ran out of draft beer on day six so I left early.) Faith, approximately 130 miles north of Rapid City, South Dakota, population 548. Birthplace of Cathy Bach, aka ‘Daisy Duke’ from TV’s Dukes of Hazard and home to ‘Sue,’ the finest find of a T-Rex skeleton now on display in Chicago. During the week, I had met and photographed Gilbert Jones, the only barber for 100-miles who recalled the very real problems growing up in Faith in the “dirty 30’s,” when there was no electricity and plagues of grasshoppers frequently blacked out the sun. The local pastor-come-artist of the Faith Christian centre, Terry Botjen, was so hot-for-god he painted me a religious landscape complete with the healing power of the almighty. I photographed the balloon bursting competition, diving competition, melon eating and seed spitting competitions.

On my way back into Bilbao for the night I make a note to get my Getxophoto 2012 submission together. I would like to report of my cultural absorbing of Bilbao night life. Truth is, after the previous days early start, I’m completely wiped and spend the evening in my hotel room with a six-pack and crisp pack, watching rhythmic gymnastics on television. The only Olympic tickets I applied for (and failed to get) was for the flawless beauty of this sport. It has been a passion since upgrading from the marching majorettes and cheerleaders of my youth. The grace, coordination, agility and artistry with ball, ribbon, rope, clubs or hoop of rhythmic gymnastics to me, is God’s own proof.

25th The plan for the trip to northern Spain was to do it on a budget. The flights were paid for and per diems of 400 euros allocated by the exhibition organisers for travel about town and accommodation. My return flight is 22.10, I’m already over budget and have 11 hours to occupy after checking out of my Bilbao hotel. I visit the old town for breakfast, stroll to the bullring, pay homage at the Estadio San Mames (home to Athletic Bilbao), pause for pastries in the park and gawp at the Guggenheim. I check my watch - seven hours until departure. I hit the bars for some Pintxo (Pincho); basically, a tiny sandwich made from what is found left in the fridge - a dollop of mayonnaise, a gherkin tip, an anchovy or prawn. They are served with equally small portions of booze. I try out my Spanglish: "Grande rojo vino, grande blanco vino, grande copa de cava." 11 glasses later, I check my watch. I’m late for my plane.

29th Summer has made a roaring comeback, the mercury touches 29C. I can’t possibly work on a day like this and flip-flop over to the Villiers Terrace. After lunch of beetroot and goats cheese salad with roasted walnuts, I get to work trying to fathom my new phone. I’ve already forgotten to save crucial contacts from the SIM. Checking what’s left, I discover numbers of yesteryear: retired picture editors, defunct magazines, and film processing labs long gone. I begin the cull and stop at H for Hetherington, Tim. There are two numbers. ‘Delete all details?’

8th I have a friend who doesn’t drink. Last week my wife went to ask them advice on cutting down. When my wife returned, the friend was back on the sauce. The resulting bender was so frightening, this week I have cut down. The past three days have been irritable, tense, and uninspiring. I’ve not made one joke or had one original thought. In an effort to uncork the creative juices, I pour a bottle of Bergerie de la Bastide, Vin de Pays de Mediterranee 2010, sit down and write up this diary. Chin Chin!



A version of this feature first appeared in issue #2 of Hungry Eye magazine, home of the Dench Diary

New Brighton Revisited

Martin Parr. Rarely does a day pass in my professional life when he isn’t mentioned by, or to me. Martin Parr, one of the world’s greatest living photographers and behemoth of photographic history. His third book The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton, is perhaps the most influential on my career - well, it's certainly top five. It was his first book in colour, and what a way to do it. Bam! Flicking through the pages a kaleidoscopic bulb burns straight on to the retina, it’s a saturated slap about the face.

The photographs were taken in the Liverpool suburb and working class seaside resort of New Brighton over three seasons, 1983-1985. The Last Resort was published a year later - a year in which I spent my summer behind the counter of Weymouth Joke Shop selling cans of 'Instant Shit’ and ‘Heavy Drinker’ caps to Bristolians and Brummies on holiday during factory shutdown. I first saw the book aged 18 in the library of the art college where I was studying for a National Diploma in photography. It was not a book of war photographs or famine but it was Parr’s front line and one I recognized as my youth. The book was a genuine revelation that a photographer didn’t have to fly to far-flung places to photograph suffering, horror and despair; you could just get on a bus.

I’d like to think I would have arrived at the style of photographs I take regardless of Martin Parr, but he certainly hastened the process. Professionally his presence has sometimes been a burden; though more often that not it's been a great benefit. Whatever, I accept the influence. It is 25 years since Parr self published the first edition. The images have become as familiar to me as my own family album. As homage to the work, earlier this year I packed the 1998 edition by Dewi Lewis publishing and headed to New Brighton on a Bank Holiday Weekend photographic pilgrimage to stomp in the footsteps of Parr.

I was born beside the seaside, beside the sea; any reason to return to the coast is welcome and welcome to New Brighton. Arriving on the Wirral Line the neck hair prickled. Through habit on any coastal trip, I deployed myself straight to the seafront and stared across the River Mersey at the 30+ wind turbines that turned steadily enough to huff New Brighton away. The resorts decline was protracted. The, 'I’m bigger than Blackpool Tower' (New Brighton Tower) was dismantled in 1920, the pier finally demolished in 78’. By the time Parr arrived it was on the fringes of ruin, but it still had the open air bathing pool. A documentary photographers jackpot, the then largest open-air pool in the country provides half a dozen plates in The Last Resort. I imagined Parr photographing the Miss New Brighton pageant wearing his trademark sandals and stooping in Speedos to shoot among the tiered benches designed to seat 20,000 sun seekers in addition to 4000 bathers. Bulldozers levelled the pool in the summer of 1990 after winter storms had caused irreparable damage - well damage the council didn’t want to pay for. A replacement has finally been nodded for approval. I squinted at the size - it would embarrass the more affluent garden pond.

On Marine Promenade I crouched in the exact spot where Parr photographed two children dribbling ice cream in front of a weather shelter and electric blue painted railings. Since he focused the 55mm lens on that Plaubel Makina 67 rangefinder camera, the railings have been layered brown, white and black then weather whipped back through black, white, brown, to original 'Parr blue' and, in places, to green underneath. What struck me was how close he must have been - an undeniable presence.


In Vale Park I knelt at the bandstand where Parr flashed for a fraction of a second in front of a woman poised in shiny pink leotard and skirt. On my visit the dancer was replaced by the Northwest Concert Band. As they tuned up, I tuned out and noticed the same bin from Parr’s shot on the parks periphery. The updated striped deckchairs still gently cradled the elderly and infirm. I snapped the scene as those able to stand for the national anthem did so.

There were hundreds of cars along the Prom but where were the people? Mostly in their cars, texting on mobile phones, talking on mobile phones, reading, staring but, mostly eating. They still came to New Brighton but there’s not much to do when you get there, except walk. The 15-mile Wirral Coastal Walk, dotted with Rhubarb and Custard uniformed Lifeguards, passes through New Brighton and a dog is a good excuse to use it. I photographed the dog walkers, ice cream eaters, pigeon feeders, model boat enthusiasts and the families hooking for crabs I met along the way. I photographed outside Susie’s Ice Cream Parlour and Legends Café Bar, but was prevented from shooting in the Bright Spot Arcade. It’s impossible as a photographer familiar with The Last Resort, not to see Parr parts in every shot. Alsatian dogs, dogs with tongues hanging out, crying children, elderly women in waterproof headscarves, scattered chips on the pavement. All have succeeded in history.

In the Queens Royal hotel, a procession of framed portraits of Miss New Brightons wearing one-piece swimsuits and knees-together sepia smiles, looked down over the wedding guests whose overfed buttocks gyrated to Lady Gaga - buttocks that would never find sepia-framed fame. I showed The Last Resort to as many locals as I could. Bridesmaid Claire was too young to remember much of old New Brighton and was uncomfortable with a stranger showing her a bright colour photograph of a naked boy balancing next to the litter strewn Marina Lake. She drank some more to forget. In The Olive Tree, Ray remembered working at Wilkie’s covered fairground 13 hours a day and the girls that would send him ‘Remember me?’ letters. He remembered days on the beach where day-trippers stood shoulder to shoulder. "Now everyone is just wider and wider,” he says wryly. None of the locals I showed The Last Resort to had heard of Martin Parr (I briefly considered moving to New Brighton). They talked more of Thatcher than of photographers. Some had seen the photographs before, they thought, somewhere, but not sure where.

On initial publication, The Last Resort divided photographers, critics and the public alike - still does. The defining moment of colour photography or the rape of noble and traditional practice? Some thought the content sneering and cruel; others affectionate and humanistic. There was no Flickr, Facebook or TwitPic to forewarn what was to come - it just flew into our laps like a chucked can of rainbow paint. Arriving in New Brighton I expected residents to react with outrage that these types of photographs were taken and that I’d brought them back into their consciousness, but no one minded. I’d hoped to find some of the individuals photographed. Perhaps the ice cool girl in the ice cream shop married someone like Ray and now both run a pub on Victoria Parade. No one recognized the individuals in the photographs but everyone recognized a little of themselves in them. Without exception they all felt sad. Sad what New Brighton once was and, despite attempts at regeneration, would probably never be again? The Last Resort was read as simply that - the last of a proud, great seaside tradition, where Mr Punch Swazzled, “That’s the way to do it!” Where The Beatles once headlined in 1961 at the Tower Ballroom for 5d a ticket, and where Gerry and his Pacemakers belted out their anthem across the Mersey. I always read it as the last resort - the place you would least want to go.

As I beat a retreat from New Brighton I too felt sad. There’s one thing the English seaside does well and that’s nostalgia. Leafing through the book my youth flickered across the pages in a visual echo of Smiths Crisps, Milky Way chocolate bars, Kwik Save carrier bags, factor two suntanned mums, prams and Pepsi cans, chip wrappers overflowing from wire rubbish bins and the cheap worn white shoes; so many white shoes. And this is what strikes me as the importance of documentary photography and film making. I’m not yet 40 and the images provoke thought and trigger memories of a past generation. This is why I will always be a photographer; to photograph what is real, to record the present in an attempt to preserve the past.

I email Parr my bank holiday snaps, he replies that he has returned to New Brighton a good few times and that it’s changed beyond all recognition: He says “Of course, now you could not shoot naked children the way I did then.” Unaware of what I can photograph today that I might not next year, I grab my camera and blink into the sunshine. It’s bright, but not quite technically brilliant dazzling New Brighton Martin Parr bright.

A version of this feature first appeared in issue #1 of Hungry Eye Magazine

Dench Diary : August 2011

1st – 6th It’s just after 9am on a sunny summers day. The sound of pre-premiership football friendlies pollute the air. I’m sat by a swimming pool looking at a pair of shorts laid neatly on a sun lounger. A long black dress is smoothed out on the adjacent lounger. I imagine the couple that will fill them. I decide the woman will smell of coconut, the man of white musk. They will be on their first holiday as a couple, they will be in love. They will link little fingers listening to the albums of Coldplay and David Gray through shared iPod headphones. I decide I won’t say hello but smile warmly at them to acknowledge their blossoming future. Three hours later they haven’t arrived. Other sun-seekers have had to sit on the floor by the pool. I hate the selfish couple and their vacated attire. I think of photographing myself in the man’s shorts and leaving a picture on the hotel notice-board, of tossing the girls dress into the pool or placing funny shaped fruit in the garment pockets.

I am on a family holiday. I’m not cut out for the family holiday. I don’t play cards at home with the window open listening to Bill Withers’ Lovely Day being sung badly on the Karaoke, but I do on a family holiday. I don’t normally drink odd coloured alcohol from odd shaped bottles, but I do that on a family holiday too. The trip has been paid for by my mother-in-law, there’s no irony in being working class and skint, mostly it just blows. I got into photography to travel the world at others expense. On assignment, I’ve partied with Maharaja’s, dined off a silver platter with Billionaires, taken a helicopter ride up the river Thames with a Hollywood movie star and sipped Gin with the Queen gazing out across the Indian Ocean.


On the family holiday, I find myself shopping for Heinz products in the Spa Supermarket listening to Bohemian Rhapsody being played over the tannoy. I eavesdrop on customers talking excitedly about the evenings Roy Chubby Brown experience. On the way back to the hotel, Scouse Tony tries to cajole me into a restaurant pointing at the beige and orange pictures of food I could tolerate on the lunchtime menu. The week is spent in a beer-haze of playing thumb wars, Hello Kitty Top Trumps and trying to purchase the photographs of happy families you find as you exit the water park. I keep sane by shooting some stock and file ‘the family holiday’ away with other events I can’t spontaneously enjoy: birthdays, weddings, New Years Eve, the entire Christmas period, school plays, the morning, sunsets and romantic walks in the park. My favourite time in the pub is Monday Brunch-time, when most people are at work. The truth is, despite my struggles, I rather like my life. Touching down in London, it feels good to back.


8th From burning on the beaches of Spain, to burning on the streets of London. With X-Factor off the air, the riot season is in full fling with looters grabbing giant TV’s ahead of the new series of the X-Factor. Spot news is not my forte. With situations like this you have to get on board early and see it through. Grow a pair and get stuck in. Sat in the comfort of The Villiers Terrace, I do what I do best in grave situations of uncertainty and Tweet some gags:

- The fire at the furniture store will end after the bank holiday weekend.
- The Croydon formal attire shop is a blazer.
- Using a water canon will have consequenches.
- Looters of Argos made off with six small blue pens.
- Mob reported on Lavender Hill.

9th As London continues to smoulder; it’s with a sense of relief that my daughter has a planned visit to her grandparents. Terminating at Weymouth we remain on the platform to observe the arrival of a rare train. The waiting train-spotters observe my daughter for what I decide is an inappropriate length of time. No one seems concerned about London so I ask about Weymouth; It’s been four months since my last visit, what’s been happening? “A charity swim and some scaffolding have been put up round by the harbour.” The 1940’s-built Southern Railway Bulleid Pacific steam locomotive named Tangmere chuffs to a halt. I don’t take out my camera.

11th Sat in the beer garden of Camden’s Edinboro’ Castle tucking into a second bottle of afternoon blush with international thriller writer Tom Knox, a French phone number flashes on the mobile. It’s Grazia with a commission to report on post London rioting, from a woman’s perspective.

12th – 13th I meet the French journalist in Dalston for the start of our riot-tour. We visit Eltham looking for a female vigilante linked to the English Defence League prevalent in the area. Join a clean up in Tottenham where I bump into the much admired Edinburgh born snapper Muir Vidler. In Croydon, we talk to the perfectly petite police staff Francesca and Claire, stand to inhale what’s left of the Reeve’s furniture store and have a pint in the Tamworth Arms where the reception from one local isn’t as warm as the street, a bit of cricket chat smoothes things over. In between the chain-smoking and caffeine quaffing, the journalist is kind enough to find time to suggest how people should be posing for my camera. Walking Clapham High St, the horror is evident but also the hope. Boarded up shops have become temporary walls of condolence with thousands of messages of support and it’s a welcome opportunity to shoot some positive images. Also evident in Clapham is the amount of whole-food shops smashed but not looted. I think it should be known as the summer of the bad-diet-riots.


16th Head down to the Ian Parry awards supported by Canon Europe at the Getty Gallery sponsored by Nikon. Ian Parry was a photojournalist who died aged only 24 whilst on assignment for the Sunday Times during the 1989 Romanian revolution. A scholarship was set up designed to award young photojournalists with a bursary that will enable them to undertake a chosen project and raise their profile in the international photographic community. The competition is for photographers who are 24 years or under. It’s also open to ancient photographers on a full-time photographic course, ask previous winner Marcus Bleasdale. Thanks to the external network at Derby University, the first time I heard of the scholarship was after I left education at the age of 25. In a way, it’s good not to have been denied the prize and I arrive uninhibited by failure to enjoy the evening. Despite the sombre origin of the prize, it attracts industry heavyweights for an upbeat industry bender. Congratulations to 2011 recipient of the prize Rasel Chowdhury from Bangladesh for Desperate Urbanization, his landscape series documenting the pollution of Dhaka.

17th Ouch! I can’t move. Throb. The clock ticks. I’m late. Focus, heave into last nights clothes and speed towards Waterloo, every second counts. Ticket, twelve minutes to spare, easy. Where the F*** is Threshers! Major refurbishment has erased my habitual shopping point. I tweet my terror. Whistlestop at the far end by platform 1, gone @ChrisSharps. Costcutter round the corner, their fridges are unreliable @paulrussell99. Sainsbury’s opposite the station, not enough time @_JamesDavies. M&S, yes, queue, four-pack of cider and I make the 10.05 to Weymouth by a doors wheeze. At Southampton Airport Parkway the M&S finest has done the job and I doze a flashback Parry party where feathered legend Dod Miller snaps under the Bognor sun and I stroke enough DNA from the face of Simon Roberts to cultivate my own line of Lumberjack shirts.


I arrive in Weymouth just in time for the space hopper race. The town’s annual highlight, the carnival, is in under way. I’m delighted that 21-years after my initial request, a beer tent has been erected for the big day. I top-up my liver and get to work filming and photographing the Devizes Male Major Wrecks down in the ‘Muff’ to raise money for the charity, Contact a Family. The men train for two hours every Sunday evening from January to May, if you live in the Devizes area, are male and a wreck they urgently need recruits. I meet newly crowned 20-year old carnival queen Lucy Compton who has enjoyed watching the event with her family since a little girl and who will lead the motorised procession flanked by Jessica Miller, 18, who when she was chosen as a finalist “Didn’t know what to do so I just ran down the stairs” and Sarah Flann, 26, a keen amateur photographer who has just finished a hairdressing course at Weymouth College. Confusingly, there’s also a Miss Weymouth, the shimmering Shiralee Gould who will be walking the Carnival route for the charity Pets at Home. I shoot video of Shiralee, also winner of the Miss Dorset Popularity award and take some stills of her eating a Mr Whippy ice cream. Shiralee says she’d “Rather be single than to be lied to, cheated on, and disrespected.” I nod sagely.


24th My shirt is on the floor. The room is full. I think there is whooping. A woman shouts “SUCK IT IN” another squeals. I am #Lot10 at the London Street Photography Festival fundraiser auction. The audience are bidding on a personal portrait session with me at their chosen venue, the prize includes a digital photo and print package. The guide price is £250 - £300. I am petrified. £100’s have been spent so far and most guide prices breached. I can see my Ketel One Vodka cocktail. I want my Ketel One Vodka cocktail. Over the festival period, I have come to rely on the Ketel One Vodka cocktail. I throw some moves and am relieved when the bidding hits £420. Someone calls for my shoes and socks to be removed. I can see where this is going and shake my head. The gavel falls. I look forward to spending the afternoon with Mr Proudfoot and his pertner.

27th Apprehensively pack for the Visa pour l’image festival of photojournalism in Perpignan. It is to date, potentially the greatest opportunity of my career. I have a 40+ print exhibition and am scheduled to give a Canon sponsored seminar, two television interviews, and a number of guided tours to my exhibit. The place can be brutal. I like a drink, photojournalists like a drink and there will be thousands. Positions two and three in my all time top ten of inebriation are attributed to the festival. Previously, I’ve had five screenings in eight years; I was there for three of them and only made it to one. I can’t even think about the country that occupies position number one. Many years later, viewing it on a map still has me retching and reaching for the floor to cuddle my knees. Each year around the anniversary of that day, I meet the man who accompanied me and we whisper our shame. For an attempt at restraint, my family are coming to Perpignan for the first few days, even my parents. This may have not been wise; the imbibing mother that bore me relishes a holiday snifter. I re-check my checklist; throw in an extra box of soluble codeine, breath in and head for the airport. It should be quite a ride.






A version of this feature first appeared in issue #1 of Hungry Eye Magazine, home of the Dench Diary

Mr Lethal Bizzle : Latest Dench Diary Video

What is Dench? Over to you Tim Westwood and Mr Lethal Bizzle;

Delighted that Mr Lethal Bizzle and his friend Frimpong, have harnessed the power of Dench into a successful clothes range. The T-Shirts have sold out. Plans are for hoodies, hats, jumpers, sweatshirts and jackets. Keep checking in with www.grimedaily.com for stock updates. There is also a forthcoming Dench toy (or it could be tour), and a Dench song, let's hope it's out in time to make a push for Christmas number one. I look forward to seeing what Mr Lethal Bizzle may rhyme with Dench, I can't think of anything.

Dench, according to the Urban Dictionary is another meaning for "sick" or "nice." If something is well Dench, you can say, "It is well Judi Dench," although I think, "It is well Dame Judi," has a nicer ring to it. Or should that be a Dencher ring to it?

They come in a variety of colours, colours, colours;

. . . . news coming in, yes, yes, it's here, the Mr Lethal Bizzle freestyle DENCH rap;

Also for your viewing pleasure, the latest Dench Diary video;

#PHONAR : task 1

When Jonathan Worth asked if I would have time to do Jon Levy's phonar task, gather 10 images of people who inspire me and lay them out in a spread, I immediately said. "Who are you, stop bothering me, what is phnnar, I haven't got the time."

After a bottle of Prosecco in The Villiers Terrace, I remembered. That Jonathan Worth, author of the critically acclaimed open undergraduate classes #PHONAR and #PICBOD. And my former flat-mate.

I would be delighted to share with you my choices;

Tim Hetherington - Tom Wood - Marcus Bleasdale

August Sander - Paul Reas

Richard Billingham - Maciej Dakowicz - Gerd Ludwig - Martin Parr

www.peterdench.com