Billy and Rolonde
Billy and Rolonde is a new personal project which is loosely about social exclusion.
I have photographed regeneration in deprived areas for many years now and, as I write in this book, '... there are many who remain unaffected, untouched by the regeneration efforts. There are those who have been excluded, or have excluded themselves, from the rest of society, busying themselves with a daily routine of survival. It is these stories I have wanted to tell.'
So, since the beginning of 2008, I have photographed and written about the experiences of three people.
Barbara, a 70-year-old Zimbabwean asylum seeker becomes increasingly depressed as she’s moved from one shared house to another, trying to stay afloat on the £35 a week in vouchers offered to ‘failed’ asylum seekers.
Middle-aged Allan is about the same age as me but our lives could not be more different. Some weeks drunk, some weeks sober, only the support of a voluntary group keeps Allan from going under altogether. “I’m still drinking and I don’t care,” he confides. “I’m going to die and I don’t care.”
Billy is now in his 30s and has been a heroin addict all his adult life. But he’s had enough. Taking my interest in him as an incentive to come through a tough detox and rehabilitation programme, he allows me into his life before and after drugs. Success rates are depressingly low and Billy has tried before to get clean…
In Billy and Rolonde, I start out as a documentary photographer of the socially excluded but find it impossible to remain an objective observer.
Billy and Rolonde is designed by Axis Graphic Design and is available from Cornerhouse Publications.
Published by Len Grant Photography
ISBN: 978-0-9526720-7-4
hardback
128 pages; 250 x 190mm portrait
30,000 words and 54 colour photographs
£15.00
This short slideshow gives a flavour of my new book. Please note: not all these images appear in the book.
Remember to turn the volume up on your computer.