{"id":358375,"date":"2025-12-19T13:43:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T13:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/358375\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T13:43:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T13:43:16","slug":"meet-the-photographer-teaching-the-french-to-love-brits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/358375\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the photographer teaching the French to love Brits"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Britain voted for Brexit, much of France was mystified. Seeking to shed light upon the \u201cfunny bunch\u201d of people who had decided to leave the European Union, Ed Alcock, a British photographer based in Paris, crossed the Channel to capture some of the faces of the UK.<\/p>\n

The result was an \u201caffectionate\u201d personal view of a somewhat eccentric nation that holds a strange fascination for the French. Alcock\u2019s images were so striking they helped earn him France\u2019s most prestigious photography prize, the Prix Ni\u00e9pce Gens d\u2019Images.<\/p>\n

He is one of only a handful of non-French photographers to be awarded the prize and the first Briton. The distinction has led to a display of his photographs at the Biblioth\u00e8que Nationale de France, the national library in Paris created by Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand, the fervent EU federalist who was president between 1981 and 1995.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

Ed Alcock is one of few non-French photographers to win the prize<\/p>\n

AI-ESTELLE BARREYRE<\/p>\n

The exhibition, which opened this week, features shots of his family but also of the towns that are his roots, such as Sleaford in Lincolnshire, where his grandfather lived, and Horden in Durham, where his great-uncle, a miner, died of pneumoconiosis at the age of 17 in 1925.<\/p>\n

\"Red<\/p>\n

You Have One Unread Message, from the series Love Lane<\/p>\n

ED ALCOCK\/MYOP<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exhibition is about my memories of growing up, of becoming a father, about family stories and secrets and about the wider story of Britain today and Brexit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a personal story, which touches on deindustrialisation, which is something I grew up with. It\u2019s my Britain, essentially the east coast,\u201d Alcock said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Yellow Square, from the series Hobbledehoy<\/p>\n

ED ALCOCK\/MYOP<\/p>\n

Photographers enjoy a lofty status in France, where the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau, famous for capturing The Kiss by the H\u00f4tel de Ville in 1950 and a previous winner of the Prix Ni\u00e9pce, are treated as artists, Alcock says. \u201cIn France, the average Joe thinks of photographers as artists first and artisans second. In the UK it feels often as if it\u2019s the other way round.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Couple<\/p>\n

The Kiss by the H\u00f4tel de Ville by Robert Doisneau<\/p>\n

ROBERT DOISNEAU\/ALAMY<\/p>\n

Yet Alcock, 51, who has lived in France for about half of his life, says it is a pleasure to go back to work in the UK. \u201cWhen you wander around any English high street, there are all sorts of rather quirky individuals, and I feel affectionate about that.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mother and Son (II), from the series Hobbledehoy<\/p>\n

ED ALCOCK\/MYOP<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a funny bunch. There is a slight, even unconscious, desire to stick out, which is unlike the perfect composition you see in France. There is something slightly imperfect about the British, which makes them perfect for photographers.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrance is a very different place to work; they are a little bit better groomed, and also less keen to expose themselves. When you wander down the average high street and ask people if they will be photographed, you get a 90 per cent rejection rate. In England there is a 90 per cent acceptance rate. They are two very different countries in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Inside the homes of 1900s London \u2014 from slums to the grandest designs<\/a><\/p>\n

At the heart of the exhibition are the photographs of Britons he took after the Brexit vote. He captured those on both sides of the debate against the backdrop of deindustrialisation, notably in the areas from which his family hails.<\/p>\n

\"Jacc<\/p>\n

Jacc and Morgan, in the Rain, from the series Buried Treasure<\/p>\n

ED ALCOCK\/MYOP<\/p>\n

In doing so, he highlights the currents, largely invisible to the many French travellers who don\u2019t venture beyond London, that swirl under the surface of British society.<\/p>\n

\"Building<\/p>\n

It Has Begun, from the series Home, Sweet Home<\/p>\n

ED ALCOCK\/MYOP<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exhibition is more about the tension irrigating Britain today, which was visible well before Brexit,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen the Brexit vote came through, I was personally very surprised, but if I had really thought about it I didn\u2019t have much reason to be surprised. My personal feeling is pro-European but at the same time, a lot of people that I grew up around voted for Brexit, so I feel an intimate connection with the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Britain voted for Brexit, much of France was mystified. Seeking to shed light upon the \u201cfunny bunch\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-358375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}