Bank Top – congregation not segregation during COVID-19 Published 08 May 2021
CREDIT: Craig Easton
The series, Bank Top, is partly the result of many years of inter-related projects I’ve been working on across the north of England. In much of my work, I can see concerns and themes that have developed over the years – the same concerns that made me want to be a photographer in the first place and Bank Top is a continuation of that.
Paul Strand once said,
“I want to use photography as an instrument of research into and reporting on the life of my own time”; I think that is very much my approach. I’d like the work I make to have a value beyond the news agenda and to stand as a testament to the times we are living in for future generations. That may be a grand aim and I may not always achieve it, but when I look back in history it is the work of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, Paul Strand and countless others that have given me a perspective
We meet the Sony World Photographer of the Year
April 22, 2021
Perhaps surprisingly for someone who has just been named Photographer of the Year (POTY) at the 2021 Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA), Craig Easton is angry. This is not necessarily a concern because when Craig gets angry, he is often compelled to challenge what has caused it.
In 2007, BBC Panorama made the programme, White Fright, tracking the ethnic and religious divide between Muslim Asian and white residents in Blackburn. They discovered white residents leaving in large numbers and that the two communities had separate lives.
All images from Bank Top, credit Craig Easton
10 stunning images from the Sony Photographer of the Year awards
Updated / Saturday, 17 Apr 2021
06:00
From barbecuing astronauts to locusts and a blue lagoon.
Want a step up from Instagram scrolling? Well, the World Photography Organisation has announced the grand winners of the Sony World Photography Awards 2021, and the images will certainly soothe tired eyes.
The overall awards winner has been named as British documentary photographer Craig Easton. His series Bank Top – collaborated on with writer and academic Abdul Aziz Hafiz – considers the representation and misrepresentation of communities in northern England , particularly the Bank Top neighbourhood in Blackburn.
A raft of 10 category winners – covering the likes of sport, landscape and environment – were also crowned. This is our pick of the stunning images…
Craig Easton who captured the culture and misrepresentation of communities has been named World Photographer of the Year 2021. Run by the World Photography Organisation (WPO), the Sony World Photography Awards are in their 14th year. More than 330,000 images were entered across 10 categories in four different competition classes: Professional, Open, Student, and Youth. Craig was announced World Photographer of the Year 2021 by Scott Gray founder and CEO of the World Photography Organisation in online ceremony. His series Bank Top was a collaboration with writer and academic Abdul Aziz Hafiz that focuses on the Bank Top area of Blackburn. It featured the residents and the shopkeepers from different backgrounds and cultures.