PADDY SUMMERFIELD

'Life at the sea's edge is like an ending for a road movie where everyone gathers together. Life dances on, year after year, under sun and cloud, holidaymakers come and go, people change, the sea does not. The imagination begins where the land ends.'

In The Holiday Pictures, Paddy Summerfield does not offer the glamour of Deauville and Biarritz; this is the British seaside, where sunlight can give way to rainy pavements, and overcast skies. And here we all are: children and parents, babies and teenagers, people of all ages and from all over, sharing the magic of the coast. We see them in families, in couples and crowds, or isolated and alone under sunlit skies; we see them bored or lost in thought, dozing or daydreaming, caught up in play or watching sky and sea. They cross the sands, they wander along promenades and piers, and endlessly photograph, making holiday memories.

With The Holiday Pictures, Summerfield tells us our own story, a primal and universal story of the generations at the sea’s edge, looking inwardly at their own feelings, and looking out to the horizons and skies. And the photo sequences imply other narratives, as if someone has walked into the next frame, as if the wave that curls in one picture is seen breaking in the next, where children splash and play.

Oxford-based, Paddy Summerfield, trained at Guildford School of Art in the Photography and the Film departments. His work has been shown in many galleries, including the ICA, The Barbican, The Serpentine Gallery, and The Photographers’ Gallery. His work is in the collections of the Arts Council and of the V&A, as well as in numerous private collections. The Holiday Pictures is his fourth book published by Dewi Lewis, two of which are now out of print, including Mother and Father (2014) which was widely acclaimed, and featured in several lists of the ‘Best Photobooks of The Year’.

Clothbound hardback
220mm x 245mm 132 pages, 73 duotone plates
ISBN: 978-1-911306-48-1
£30.00 UK / $45.00 USA

Also by Paddy Summerfield
The Oxford Pictures
Empty Days