This blog charts the visual journey of photographer Jon Mortimer as he puts together his new book about England and The English people entitled “The Madness of St George”. A selection of the images that will make up the book will appear here as they are compiled.
If you are interested in buying editorial and advertising rights for any of these images please email: info@jonmortimer.com for prices and usage details. Limited edition prints are also available by emailing the same email address.
All images are copyright of Jon Mortimer.
Ramsgate is a seaside town very close to my heart. A source of inspiration to feed my hunger for English sea-side life. I especially love the town out of season. These images were taken this spring and show the slow pre-holiday murmuring of a bastion of the bucket and spade. A town that has seen better days and after a somewhat shambolic make over, which appears to have substituted a new uninteresting and oh-so-very-common bland tat for the old wonderfully eccentric tat that I found so enchanting, I hope that it finds another wind to lift it’s metaphorical beach side swing horses to the heights of it’s heyday in the sun.
Herne Bay is a sweet little seaside town on the North Kent Coast. When I arrived on the promenade I was overcome with a sense of awe and horror all scrambled up into one. Stretching up from the shore out into the North Sea, less like a flag fluttering in the blue watery sky, more like a plastic sign post held high above a petrol station, is the brilliantly horrific pier. Not with the regency splendour of Brighton Pier but more the air of a B&Q megastore on stilts this strangely chosen design still makes me smile beneath my tears
A little step in to the eccentric world of Doug and Brenda, who have run their Knitting Machine Repair business out of their front room in Faygate in West Sussex for the last 30 years. A fine example of a dying trade being kept alive and kicking. They even have a model railway in the back garden. Perfect. Thank you Doug and Brenda for letting me into your world.
And a taster of the railway.
And every good English town has to have a hoodie.
Anyone for a day trip to Margate?
A day at the football:
The journey starts at a street party to celebrate The Royal Wedding of William and Kate.
All images are copyright of Jon Mortimer.
