Typhoon Haiyan (or Yolanda as it’s known locally) wreaked havoc across much of the central Philippines. In total, more than 8,000 people were killed, and more than four million people were forced from their homes.
In the short term, the typhoon left more than 14.1 million people in need of immediate, life-saving assistance. But it also pushed millions of poor people further into poverty and debt. Rice crops, coconut trees and fishing boats were wiped out, leaving people struggling to grow food and earn an income.
Over the past year I’ve been collaborating with Oxfam and The Guardian to create a series of landscape photographs which show the changes taking place on the ground after such a devastating natural disaster.
The results were published in the Guardian Weekend Magazine on 1st November 2014 (below) along with an article by Kate Hodal. You can view the feature online here as well as see the landscape photograph transitions.
You can also download a pdf of the spread here.
A series of photographs from my We English and Pierdom series are included in this new survey of contemporary landscape photography produced by curator William A. Ewing and published by Thames&Hudson.
ABOUT: Landmark is a defining survey of contemporary landscape photography featuring more than 230 images by over 100 leading photographers of today, all of whom present an individual viewpoint about a shared concern for our changing landscape and environment. The book is organized around ten themes and includes work by such distinguished practitioners as Edward Burtynsky, Stéphane Couturier, Mitch Epstein and Sally Mann. From restful, bucolic images capturing the last vestiges of nature, through shocking depictions of a sullied Earth, scarred and abused, to surreal and artificial landscapes where the natural landscape is a highly controlled one, the book provides a thought-provoking meditation on the meaning of landscape in todays world. The well-known writer and curator William A. Ewing contributes introductory texts to each of the sections, as well as the preface and introduction. Landmark also features statements by the artists themselves.
In reference to We English, Ewing writes:
“As the historian Simon Schama has noted, the pastoral is ‘a product of the orderly mind rather than the playground of the unchained senses.’ Simon Roberts’s images of the English at play illustrate this point beautifully; a people at ease with themselves and surroundings, ‘exploring and examining their own countryside, eulogizing its obvious virtues… making a virtue of its drawbacks, and assuring themselves that no country in the world is quite so pleasant’. In fact, those words were used to describe England as photographed by the thoughtful Edwin Smith almost a century ago. Yet they apply beautifully to Roberts’s world.”
The book is organized into ten themes—Sublime; Pastoral; Artefacts; Rupture; Playground; Scar; Control; Enigma; Hallucination; and Reverie—Landmark is an intelligent and poetic survey which captures a genre of photography to perfection.
Details
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 256
- Artwork: 240 color illustrations
- Size: 12 in x 10 in
- Published: September 16th, 2014
- ISBN-10: 0500544336
- ISBN-13: 9780500544334
Available on Amazon, here.
I recently worked on a commission to create a print advert for Citizen’s first ever global advertising campaign (above).
Here’s more about the project:
“Citizen Watch Co., Ltd embarks on a race against time in CHASING HORIZONS, the 84 year-old watchmaker’s first-ever global campaign that launches today. Created jointly by Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo and Amsterdam, Citizen’s first global campaign challenged photographer Simon Roberts and ex-NATO pilot Jonathan Nicol to chase the sunset across the Earth’s time zones.
An integrated campaign, Chasing Horizons utilizes the imagery captured during the expedition in global print and digital executions. The short film (see below) by acclaimed documentary director, Tristan Patterson, portrays the story of the journey itself and is used for TV and online content.
You can see the results on the CITIZEN Special Global Campaign Site here: http://www.betterstartsnow.com/en/f100/chasing-horizons/
In a precisely planned window of time during late February 2014, when the days were still long but before the sun no longer sets, Simon and Johny undertook the mission. Setting off from Reykjavik in Iceland, they moved to a new time zone each hour; with Simon capturing the moment with a photo of the setting sun, while the Eco-Drive SATELLITE WAVE adjusted back to ensure they were living in the same hour.
Flying in the opposite direction to the Earth’s rotation, they were able to stay in the same moment of time and experience the same sunset over and over again – but in a new location. The team continuously kept up with the sunset for one night before landing at their final destination in the Arctic Circle, with the mission ultimately resulting in a completely unique series of sunset imagery, taken at exactly the same hour and same minute, in the same day.
Article in AdWeek: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/citizen-flies-westward-chasing-endless-sunset-global-campaign-wk-160490
On set of the Chasing Horizons film directed by Tristan Patterson, Iceland, February 2014 © Jon Sveinsson
A selection of photographs from Pierdom features in the current issue of Amica Magazine in Italy (October 2014 issue). It features an article by Howard Jacobson.
You can download a pdf here.
Pierdom is published today in the Dutch news magazine, Volkskrant.
You can download a pdf of the article here.
What can I say, I’ve made the pages of the esteemed Blackpool Gazette!
An interview and photographs from We English appear in a recent issue of CityZine Magazine in China.
You can download a pdf here.
PAG.216
FORMAT 12 X 20 cm
YEAR 2013
BINDING flexbound
We English (Chris Boot, 2009) is featured in the third and final volume of Phaidon’s acclaimed Photobook series, described as ‘the most important contribution to the field since modern histories of photography began to appear in the early 20th century’ (photo-eye) by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger.
See more here.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Following the success of volumes I and II of The Photobook: A History, this third volume brings the history of the photobook up to date, with specific exploration of postwar and contemporary examples. It covers key themes including the globalization of photographic culture, the personalization of photobooks, the self-publishing boom and the new ‘layered’ photobook approach.
While the history of photographs is a well-established canon, less critical attention has been directed at the phenomenon of the photobook, which for many photographers is perhaps the most significant vehicle for the display of their work and the communication of their vision to a mass audience. Volume III, co-edited by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, expands this study and history of the photobook further. It explores the symbiotic relationship between the contemporary propaganda book vs. the protest photobook, sex and youth culture, photographers examining their own environments and the impact of the Internet and social media on the nature of the photobook, among much else.
The book is divided into 9 thematic chapters, each featuring general introductory text providing background information and highlighting the dominant political and artistic influences on the photobook in the period, followed by more detailed discussion of the individual photobooks. The introductory chapter texts are followed by spreads and images from over 200 books, which provide the central means of telling the history of the photobook. Chosen by Parr and Badger, these illustrations show the most artistically and culturally important photobooks in three dimensions, with the cover or jacket and a selection of spreads from the book shown.
Phaidon, 2014
Hardcover
11 3/8 x 9 7/8 inches (290 x 250 mm)
320 pages
900 color illustrations
The current edition of Colors Magazine, Issue 88 themed Protest, has published a series of my work from Let This Be A Sign, including a gate-fold of my protest poster photographs (see below).
You can buy the magazine online here.
Over the past three years, people in more than 80 countries across the world have taken to the streets to protest
against their governments. But only in six of the above countries did governments finally fall.
COLORS 88 – Protest tells stories of how protests start, spread, triumph, are repressed and sometimes become revolutions. From South Korea’s anti-uprising volunteer corps to female drivers in Saudi Arabia; from Mexico’s labor rights superheroes to fully-armed guns rights demonstrators in the United States; from the pigs left to roam the main square of Nairobi, Kenya, to Palestinians dressing like blue aliens from Hollywood film Avatar, we’ve interviewed, photographed, and illustrated popular uprising across the world. Plus, Occupy, Tahrir, FEMEN sextremists and a series of illustrated DIY protest techniques and strategies: how to use a mattress as a shield, chain yourself to a tree, and hold your breath until it’s all over.