The photographer staring death in the face
- Text by Saoirse O'Leary
- Photography by Ben Gore
A cat in a bathtub. A creepy flea market. A dad sunbathing on the beach. Goodbye, Blue Monday is the follow-up to photographer Ben Gore’s celebrated photoboook Second Adolescence.
Citing Jim Goldberg and Larry Clark as major influences, Ben has used photography to re-examine how he looks at the world around him. With themes of maturity and mortality, he uses a familiar lens to face our greatest fears: growing up and growing old.
“[Going freelance] made me hyperaware of the passing of time,” Ben says. “I’m now fully in control of how I spend my time, but I’m also fully responsible for the good or bad I do with it. It’s only on me. The preoccupation with death in the book comes from that ethos. Death is the final full stop on your time and I’ve got a drive to make the most of my time while I’m here.”
Goodbye, Blue Monday will be shown from 21-24 July at the Doomed Gallery Dalston, and is available to preorder now.
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
Latest on Huck
Exploring the impact of colonialism on Australia’s Indigenous communities
New exhibition, ‘Under a Southern Star: Identity and Environment in Australian Photography’ interrogates the use of photography as a tool of objectification and subjugation.
Written by: Miss Rosen
My sister disappeared when we were children. Years later, I retraced her footsteps
After a car crash that saw Magnum photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa hospitalised, his sister ran away from their home in South Africa. His new photobook, I Carry Her Photo With Me, documents his journey in search of her.
Written by: Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Inside New York City’s hedonistic 2000s skateboarding scene
New photobook, ‘Epicly Later’d’ is a lucid survey of the early naughties New York skate scene and its party culture.
Written by: Isaac Muk
Did we create a generation of prudes?
Has the crushing of ‘teen’ entertainment and our failure to represent the full breadth of adolescent experience produced generation Zzz? Emma Garland investigates.
Written by: Emma Garland
How to shoot the world’s most gruelling race
Photographer R. Perry Flowers documented the 2023 edition of the Winter Death Race and talked through the experience in Huck 81.
Written by: Josh Jones
An epic portrait of 20th Century America
‘Al Satterwhite: A Retrospective’ brings together scenes from this storied chapter of American life, when long form reportage was the hallmark of legacy media.
Written by: Miss Rosen