056 - Robin Maddock
© Robin Maddock
English photographer Robin Maddock is probably best known for his personal approach to documentary photography, looking at different places and the states of mind of people that inhabit them.
His first two photography books were about aspects of England. Our kids Are Going to Hell (2009) is a portrait of the social interactions of youth and the police in Hackney, London. This work was nominated for the Deutsche Börse photography prize and was runner up at Photo España’s ‘discovery’ portfolio prize.
Robin’s second title, God Forgotten Face (2011) continued his work on aspects of everyday English society, focussing on the South Western town of Plymouth.This work was selected by Martin Parr as his choice in the Smithsonian magazine’s “The new stars of photography” edition in February 2012. Both titles are published by Trolley Books and are included in the The Photobook, A History: Volume 3, edited by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger.
Robin’s third book entitled III (2014) was a major stylistic departure depicting a playful black and white look at the streets of America on the west coast. It was featured in the New York Times 6th floor blog, Time Magazine Lightbox and the Financial Times among others. III was shortlisted at PHESP as one of the books of 2014 and was selected byJason Fulford for Time Magazine online, as his pick of the year.
For his current book project, Engerland, due for completion this year, 2017, Robin has returned to focussing on his native land, looking at small towns and the countryside. It is more portrait based than previous works and attempts to deal with the problem of the picturesque landscape.
In episode 056, Robin discusses, among other things:
The perils of trespassing
The goal of crossing social boundaries
The exotic of the every day
Where ideas come from
Taking risks with something weird
“Part of that project [III] was about spending all this time in the darkroom in San Francisco, with cool music on and great kids down there and, you know, really good fun. And I remember thinking, ‘God, is this what being happy feels like?!’”
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