Stephen Shaw born 1976, year of the punk was raised on Grangepark, Blackpool in the North West of England. He is an MA photographer and has a BA first class honours in photography. Shaw is frequently published specializing in symbolism, Social Documentary and Portraiture, working within street / documentary.
Stephen pursued photography through a passion ignited by a dream he had as a child.
Shaw's images are motivated by pain and memorialism. He has great empathy with a desire to research failed human constructs having lived a darker side of life that he frequently questions and talks about with truth and a deep understanding of the people that inhabit its fabric, hoping to help them. This is his driving force to evolve knowledge through the photographic medium, bringing subjects he cares about to the attention of a wider audience .
'Shaw's work is raw and real. He's a brave one, attracted to what many would run from,'.
PP Hartnett.
He has recently graduated from Blackpool and the Fylde college Palatine university centre in the UK, with a first class honours degree in Photography and is now studying an MA in Photography at Central Lancaster university.
His fans include the photographer PP Hartnett. 'Shaw's work is raw and real. He's a brave one, attracted to what many would run from,' says Hartnett.
His work The Gift is a project around the Blackpool drug scene particularly meth and heroin with IMAGES OF DAMAGED YOUTH, MALES Injecting and using drugs in Blackpool, the uk capital for drugs and drug deaths, with a deeply symbolic personal narrative.
Strange is set on a council estate where I have lived all my life and involves images that document my own environment Grange Park in Blackpool and its local inhabitants involving murder and truth within our way of life, with a strong narrative of social mobility made up of omens, portents and superstition.
Queens town has a narrative of social mobility and a strong theme of suicide made up of Images and recorded interviews that document a way of life of the local inhabitants in Blackpool high-rise flats that are now demolished, with a strong narrative of suicide.
Arrival speaks strongly of multiculturalism, racial and patriotic gaze alongside long standing stigmas that are hard to remove from the fabric of society with Images documenting racial diversity in cities across the UK.
Last stops grew around Images documenting people with dementia and its rise over the recent years, particularly the story of a mother and son. I include personal concepts and cultural notions using experimental writing within haiku poetry representing these ideas. Some of the subjects have very sadly recently passed away and the images take on a whole new foreboding light as if foretelling future events. Similar to an inverted subjectual Ravens.
I wish to tell the truth about Britain, alongside a personal story and current concepts of a global nature.
My images are motivated by personal pain, the unknown, open secrets and memorialism . I have a great sense of empathy with a desire for knowledge and researching failed human constructs . The simple and avoidable but often unnoticed flaws in our culture and the people that inhabit its fabric are what drives me . I have a thirst to photographically conceive to evolve our knowledge with the photographic medium and bring this to the attention of a greater audience .
Time is a circle not a line.
When your eyes start to burn
Maybe you should step back and ask yourself.
why?