Communities

Jul

Communities

Elisabeth Blanchet

“I am a UK-based freelance photographer. I have always been interested in and curious about people who live differently from the so-called ’settled community’. My camera is like a passport to meet them, spend some time with them and hear their stories. ‘Communities’ is one of the recurrent themes in my work and I have photographed Gypsies and Travellers, people who live in prefabs, bicycle messengers…

“My work is regularly exhibited, especially the photo essay ‘Ceausescu’s Orphans, 20 years on’ and my archive on Gypsies and Irish Travellers in the UK. Another recurrent theme in my work is nostalgia and its resulting emotions are expressed in most of my personal projects such as ‘Morrissey and me’, ‘Seaside holidays’ or ‘Watercolours’.

“The image above is Corina when she was 10 in 1997 and in October 2011 with her husband and her kids, Romania. This diptyque is part of my work ‘Ceausescu’s orphans, 20 years on’. I have spent the last 5 years tracking down children from an orphanage in Romania I had known and photographed in the 90’s.

“The second image in this post is Mrs Christine Gregory and one of her 13 cats in front of her prefab, Catford, June 2012. This image is part of a long term project (10 years of work) on UK post-war prefabs and their residents

“I am working on 4 main projects:
- extending my 10 years work on Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers in the UK towards Ireland and America focusing on the Irish Travellers diaspora.
- starting a web documentary on post war prefabs in the UK.
- completing my ‘Ceausescu’s orphans, 20 years on’ work by finding more ex-orphans and starting a film about this work
- researching and exploring more about nostalgia and its strong links with images and photography.”

To see more within Elisabeth’s projects, just visit her website.