Rob Ball..

The Boating Pool, Ramsgate, 2010. (c) Rob Ball.

I still read the local news from the homeland everyday and was delighted to see a piece in The Guardian Newspaper on my fellow Photography Avenger Rob Ball. 

I met Rob several years ago when he invited me to do a visiting lecture which then led on to a a small working relationship where I visited Canterbury a few times a week giving tutorials and to students along with some photographic inspiration (I think).

Rob is a tour de force and one of those photographers that looks at what is around him rather than wishing he was somewhere else. 

He has also just released a new book on the British Coast and its sea side towns, a subject I love and have dipped in a little myself. 

“To me, the seaside is heady and joyous all year round,” says photographer Rob Ball. “We have memories of family holidays or time spent by the coast, so we all have a connection to it.” Ball has published three books of coast-based photos since moving to Whitstable on the north coast of Kent more than a decade ago. His latest, Funland, captures more than 35 British coastal communities, from Arbroath on Scotland’s North Sea coast to Torquay on the English Riviera. “I like how seafronts have visually rich, brightly coloured signs and buildings, alongside the coffee shops and rubbish bins,” Ball says. He is committed to documenting their evolving look, he says: “Our seaside heritage is vulnerable and it’s important to record it before it changes.”

Funland by Rob Ball is published on 23 May by Hoxton Mini Press (£30)

You can see the piece here and his work here.