Ed Thompson’s work walks the line between documentary and fine art photography. His work is a product of a lifetime obsession with photography and the documenting of his surroundings. Described by Germaine Greer as “the most single minded photographer” who “probably thinks about photography all the time, like a train spotter”, Thompson is one of Britain’s top up and coming documentary photographers. Greer went on to say “he’d take a photograph whilst he fell out of a moving vehicle”, illustrating the photographer’s dedication to his work.
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Thompson’s recent series ‘The Village’ is from the larger ‘Unseen Project’ which sees him using some of the last rolls of infra-red film that will ever be made to document and create eerie scenes of Pluckley, a one-thousand-year-old village in Kent that’s believed to be the most haunted place in the UK. Here Ed uses this special film for what it was originally designed for: to pick up more nanometres of light than is normally visible to the human eye in order to detect something that may normally escape our visual spectrum. Although no actual ghosts appear in the images, they’re charged with a physiologically disturbing filmic quality that makes a regular landscape appear like the scene of a crime or a set from a cult horror film.
Ed’s dedication to his work is illustrated by his approach to the Texas Hill Country series, where he spent the best part of two years documenting an insight into the world of the Texan. By spending long periods of time with the locals and getting to know them, he opens our eyes to regular events such as the Gun Show and ‘Bible & Bulls’ night at the Cowboy Church, and presents us with powerful portraits of characters such as Bob Scaggs posing with a rifle he last used in Vietnam, and the compelling image of a Texan ranch hand relaxing with a beer after slitting a wild pigs throat. Sometimes surreal but always informative - the city limits of Utopia, Texas, a very small town with a population of 241 are marked by distinctive sign posts - other images give us a glimpse of everyday life in that part of the world. Porkie’s Guest Bedroom (that Porkie’s wife doesn’t like him showing to visitors), and the portrait of Dawn, the 55-year-old woman standing outside her home holding a her US flag that has been mauled by cows, shows an intense and often warped patriotism. Some may find these images shocking; some may find they confirm preconceptions they may have had on a society that may be very different to our own.
Thompson’s distinctive style developed from an early apprenticeship with Russian photographer Sergei Tchilikov, where he learnt the value of shooting everyday life, and “how innocuous images can allow you to touch at something great”. Other influences that have crossed his path over the years have come in the form of Martin Parr, Richard Billingham and Simon Norfolk amongst other great photographers. The Texas Hill Country series was completed during his Masters degree in Photojournalism and Documentary photography at London College of Communication. In 2008 Thompson was one of six finalists in Channel Four’s “Picture This”, where the aim was to discover the best new digital photographer in the UK and in 2005 he was the runner up in a portraiture competition run by The Observer. His documentary photo-essays have been published in international magazines including National Geographic Magazine, Newsweek Japan, Pipeline (Hong Kong), The Guardian Weekend and The Sunday Times Magazine Spectrum Supplement. His work has been exhibited in photography festivals in Arles (France), Tampere (Finland), Zingst (Germany) & London; he received an honourable mention at the Magenta Flash Forward in 2013 (with work from The Unseen Project) and won the Special Prize at Magnum Photos/ Ideastap Award in 2010 (with the Re-Home series that includes Barbara The Hen). Ed currently lives and works in London.