New opportunities – in the world of wrestling!

Home has two meanings for me.  My place of birth which 10 years ago I returned to with my family in the North East of England and the home where I was moved to when I was very young and grew up in (the South East).

Looking to the South East I wanted to create a project on the area where I grew up, returning to places I frequented and looking at the area now but hit upon a problem, to me, middle class suburbia is so vapid, sterile and bland, where would I start?  How would I capture anything of meaning which would be appealing for another to spend their time looking at.

I could go down the route of Martin Parr, one of the greats who managed to exemplify the vapidity of middle class suburbia – but then I’m not Martin Parr and my version of his style would be a pale imitation of it.

I have regrets that previous invitations to street parties in the area were turned down which I see now as opportunities where I could have highlighted the bedizened existence found in the town where I grew up and my parents still reside, so putting the idea of documenting the area where I grew up asside (and saving myself the 260 mile journey) I started to look around my home town for something new & different to photograph.

After seeing a post on Facebook for a local wrestling event, I approached the promoter and was invited into the world of wrestling.  A lifelong love of the sport saw me attending a fantastic promotion called Colliery Championship Wrestling, a promotion that is entwined with the community it entertains, not only providing opportunities for people to get involved but also charity work – its certainly a promotion that puts much back into the community.  Little did I know that a few weeks later I’d be brought into the show by being attacked by the “bad guy” when he took offence to me photographing him after he lost his title belt in the main event of one of their shows.

So I now have another avenue for my photography, have made some great friends and received an behind the scenes view of a sport I’ve been a fan of for many years. Think wrestling is fake? If you’d seen from an insiders view what a wrestler puts themselves through both in the ring and backstage, you’d never call it fake again.