July 6, 2023 |
Sitting on a wooden bench just outside of Flatwhite, Berwick Street’s coolest coffee spot, Dan Boulton was exuberant. The sun was glaring in our faces as we spoke; the passers by were clamorous. Between those buzzy street sounds and persistent chatter, Boulton introduced me to his visual universe: one characterised by disruptive seminal youth culture, freedom, connections, curiosity, and honesty.
His new tome, entitled Paris Youth, examines these nuances as it arrives off the back of his 2016 photobook, No Turning Back, Southbank 2005–2015. Photographing kids on the cusp of adulthood with a weary world stacked on their shoulders, in and around the Place de la République between 2020 and 2022, Boulton reveals a fascination with the ways in which youths are forging the future. He cites Mathieu Kassovitz’s cult 1995 film La Haine, Larry Clark’s Kids, Jim Goldberg’s Raised by Wolves, 1980s punk culture and Kurt Cobain as inspiration. A father to two teens himself, he’s an outsider looking in, but his perspective isn’t jaded by age, he merely observes, capturing these kids as they truly are.
Prefacing the hardback with the political slogan, “La beauté est dans la rue” which translates to “Beauty is in the street” – taken from a protest sign in Paris during the civil unrest of May 1968 – the book’s arrival is rather timely. Right now, Paris is in uproar with protests and riots igniting across the country after the tragic death of Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old who was shot dead by the police during a traffic stop in a suburb of Nanterre. The forward, written by artist and photographer Nick Waplington, recounts his own arrival in Paris some 50 years after 1968’s social turbulence, where he encountered this ongoing, frighteningly similar scene. “As I walked around the city, I was confronted by teenagers out on the streets fighting for their right to a decent education. What an unexpected and joyful sight it was: young people marching past, blowing whistles, singing and chanting slogans. The French government had lined the streets with riot police who watched on silently – that is, until the young people decided to sit down to block traffic. At that point, the cops wasted no time in dragging protestors away and arresting them. But there was no surrender to the brutal, baton-wielding, thuggish looking police. Instead, the students continued to block major junctions throughout the city for the rest of the day, determined to demand their basic rights and freedoms no matter the cost.” Paris Youth doesn’t document these demonstrations, but it does take a look at the hands holding the placecards.
Each unadulterated image was captured during various trips to the city, sometimes teaming up with casting director Esther Boiteux or organically meeting local kids in places like République square. From page to page, a poignant narrative unfolds, told through intimate portraiture; the young individuals the photographer met over the course of the two years gaze directly into the camera. Nearing the end, a conversation between Boulton and Ashley Kane (the art and photography editor-at-large at Dazed) flows through the stories behind the photos, being an outsider and following his instincts. Paris Youth is a glimpse into the brave optimism and resilience of the kids of today.
Tonight, from 6-9pm at PhotoBook Cafe, Boulton will be launching the book along with a small exhibition and book signing, but before you go, the Enfield-bred photographer gives us the lowdown on Paris Youth.
Hey Dan! So what have you been up to lately?
It’s just been really crazy promoting this book and doing press and all that stuff that I never really pay much attention to. The book was actually meant to be launched in November last year, but then it got stalled because of strikes or something or another, and we had it all ready to launch again around February this year, but all the books were stuck in customs for months and when they finally turned up they were misprinted. Then I thought it was going to be as simple as going to another printer and just re-doing it, but oh my God, no. It was like starting from scratch. Anyways, they’ll be delivered on Friday *fingers crossed*.
Can you walk me through Paris Youth?
When I shot these kids – Gaia I was already in touch with and her sister and sister’s girlfriend at the time who’s now her wife; Ilan I wanted to shoot more because I kind of felt fatherly to him – they all knew each other so they were very excitable on set. I don’t speak French – or very little anyway – but I was just obsessed with that whole buzz… the passion of it. We styled it, but it was all their own clothes. It grew from there. Gaia lived right by the Place de la République – which is a skate spot – so I started, in my down time (as I always do wherever I am in the world) hanging out where the skaters are, because that’s my background. Ilan was there skating and I just realised that there’s all these connections being made. I did whatever I could to get there. But you know, I’m still in contact with them so every time I go back to Paris, I shoot more.
What I think is that the difficulties I faced all the way through – the not speaking French, the Covid lockdowns, the having to travel – made it a project that (it sounds weird to say this because I’m almost 50 and have been photographing for years and taught photography) allowed me to grow up and mature with my photography. It’s so different from what I’ve done in the past.
I’m nervous though, because there’s this thing that David Bowie said: “If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.” It’s about this idea of feeling uncomfortable, and I feel uncomfortable because this is a bit different to what I’ve done in the past. It’s more considered and emotional. I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on something – it’s insane – even at this point in my life. I honestly can’t even remember working this hard on my degree. But then, I genuinely thought of a book of people, and not really about Paris, but the people that are living in Paris. It’s called Paris Youth, because that’s what I wrote on the boxes of negatives. And there’s a ridiculous amount of negatives and photos. I used 200 rolls of film, which had to be whittled down to like 50 odd images. I just love shooting; I could probably fill a whole magazine.
Just make it the Dan Boulton Magazine.
I need to get on that!
How did you select the images that would go in for publication?
That absolutely comes down to genuine honesty. When you’re looking at them, they just feel honest. Even the ones where the lads have got their tops off, you know, they instigated that; they’ve got tattoos they want to reveal! One kid was like, ‘hold on,’ then he dropped to the floor and did 50 Pushups and then was like ‘Well I’m ready now.’ And that’s what it is; it’s honesty, it’s trust and trust with me. And I see that when I look at the photos, there’s that kind of mutual respect going on.
Between your last publication No Turning Back, and Paris Youth, how would you say your perspective, process and outcomes have evolved?
This is the embarrassing thing you know. I suddenly realised that that book [No Turning Back] was the last time I did an exhibition – that was seven years ago. It was never the intention to take such a break from it, but I ended up shooting more fashion stuff. It’s just really weird, like, as a photographer, you have this dream of doing commercial stuff and working, but then it happens, and suddenly you don’t have time to do your own projects. So maybe Covid was a good thing for me, because there wasn’t really much work happening, and it was a good time to do that again. Only difference is, I use a different camera now.
What do you use now?
It’s a medium format but they’ve nicknamed it the Texas Leica (Fuji GW690iii). I’ve always shot with a small 35mm Leica, like Larry Clark and photographers throughout history have used – which isn’t really a fashion photography camera but I’ve shot all the stuff for 10 and i-D with it – but I wanted the kind of impact that you get, and the quality, of a larger camera. When I finally found this one, it was as if somebody put testosterone in my old camera.
The Texas Leica is a bugger to use, especially inside, because it has got a really narrow field of focus, and with the way that the rangefinders work, you look through a viewfinder, but you’re not seeing the actual picture if that makes sense. With this, I’m just hoping it works. But there are times when it goes wrong, and actually, there are some shots in the book that I ummed and arred about putting in because in some areas they’re a bit soft, but I think it kind of adds to them.
The sole purpose of the Texas Leica was for actually Japanese Coach drivers, so that they could photograph tour goers at specific locations. So it’s got a huge negative so that they could get everyone in the frame. In terms of medium format, it’s the biggest one you can get actually.
I’ve always kind of mixed things up though. I’ll shoot a polaroid, medium format, 35mm. I like layering things. Initially, the book was actually gonna be a complete facsimile of the sketchbook pages, or the test prints. But no, it just worked; it just seemed to give the work more weight, and it felt more grown up.
So how do you know Nick?
He’s weirdly always looked out for me. He’s just been really nice. He’s done amazing things like, I did a book/zine thing for the New York Post, and I gave him a copy and he was like, “can you give me a load more? I will take them over to New York for you”. He is like the big brother I always wished I had, so, I asked him, “who do you think I should approach to do a forward?” And when he got back to me he was like, “actually, I think I will do it for you”.
When it came through, I couldn’t believe it. As a photographer, you’re never going to compare yourself to Paul Strand or these kinds of historical photographers, but he made connections that I would be, not embarrassed but, I don’t know if I have the ego to say.
In the forward he wrote, “Like (Paul) Strand, Boulton is a foreigner in France, and is able to see and portray a potency and vigour in the young that is too often notably absent in Anglo countries like the United States and Great Britain and the United States.” So I wanted to ask you how you think that outsider perspective really impacts the visuals and gives it something that you wouldn’t get from somebody who’s born and raised in Paris?
So for these kids, they’re pretty used to being shot by their friends and stuff, cause every kid’s got a film camera kind of thing. I think at my age and with the fact that I wasn’t French, they didn’t need any kind of peer presence or anything like that. So what really strikes me more than anything when I look at the photos is just how bloody genuine they are. That is ‘them’.
In the back of the book, Ashley did a questionnaire with me, but I picked out the title, which is a Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) song lyric because every time I look at the images, that’s what comes to mind: “Come as you are/ as you were.” That is exactly them. They turned up like that and it was just like, “Man, you’re really cool.”
Do you always try to find a personal angle in the work that you’re doing?
Yeah, which is a good and a bad thing. It does work, but there’s been times where it’s been hard working with stylists because I come in with an idea and bring a big A4 moleskine sketchbook crammed with research, my photos and other people’s photos, which doesn’t always go so well. I found that when I showed this to those kids, they really buzzed off of it though and then unbeknownst to me, they’d be like, “Oh my God, that’s so and so” – and then I’m suddenly like, “Oh my God, these people know each other.” One kid I photographed was like, “Oh, by the way, I don’t know if you’ve realised, but you shot my sister two weeks ago.” I hadn’t, but then as soon as he said it, I put it together.
Are you a perfectionist?
I’m absolutely a perfectionist. I feel like there’s so much at stake with this as well. Finance doesn’t bother me, but with the time that people have given me and the time that I’ve put in it, I just wanted it to be really good. And bizarrely, so I was telling you about getting back the problems with the printers and stuff like that, but in re-doing it again for another printer it’s become like my ‘Blue Monday’ (by New Order). They were losing money and it became really popular so it cost them a fucking fortune. Paris Youth is kind of like that. After being knocked back, I literally just threw as much as I could at it. The weird thing is, when I sent it off, the quote came back and it was literally 50 pounds shy of my entire budget. So I was like “okay, that’s a sign.”
What do you find so alluring about youth culture?
I had a pretty rough childhood. My mom was really ill from the age of 11 until she passed away in my second year of uni. I really took that upon myself, and as the eldest, I kind of became a carer to my younger brother. I think I grew up way too fast and I took life way too seriously in that sense. I always felt like I’d missed out on that period of my life to a certain extent, so it’s a case of recapturing that – Southbank definitely was. That was when my boys were really young and I was going to Southbank as a kind of familiar solace. I would just sit there, hang with the kids and then take photos. I just needed that connection again. So it’s that, but there’s also no getting away from it. It’s an amazing part of life, you know. People are really interesting. I think there’s just an energy to them that if you’re a truly creative person, you need.
And you know, we were all in lockdown at the time [I shot Paris Youth], but now everyone around your age has gone headlong back into travelling and I’m driven mad by it. I’m so jealous because kids are just doing what they should be doing: bumming around, making friendships, making connections with each other, and learning. I get to do that now as well. It’s just amazing to be around – that self-expression, that DIY feel.
What are you trying to say with Paris Youth? Is there a vindicating message?
It’s getting back to that Nirvana quote “Come as you are/ as you were,” just presenting yourself as you are. I didn’t think this when I was making the work, but it became apparent afterwards. People just want to be seen and understood.
But also, like Nick says in the book, there’s that power of youth and it’s frightening when you get to my age, because you realise that the only way things are going to change is if you get together and it’s really frustrating to see. It’s really frustrating to see the coronation, and any kind of protest being cut down. Paris is scary right now; they’re lining the streets with riot police. But there’s this kind of acceptance amongst kids, and it’s kind of ingrained in Parisian culture – it’s very ingrained in the French anyways – this being able to express yourself in protest. It doesn’t get shut down. I mean, obviously, they make arrests, and they pull people away, and they eventually shut down protesters in Paris. But what’s worrying here is that with all the data and technology they’ve got now, it doesn’t even get there. How frightening is that man? Like God forbid that something horrible happens in this country, the equivalent of what was happening around the time of COVID and BLM, the tension in America at that. Because here, I truly believe they’d snub it out before we could even just be. You’re the age that I’m talking about. It must be so frustrating.
It’s stressful to think that the country is trying to stop your ability to protest because it feels like that’s like human rights. Like the one thing, you’re allowed to do.
And yet you’ve got all these channels of expression now. We’ve got all this open to us.
It doesn’t have the same impact though. Like a social media protest, or something, can feel very trivial.
Exactly. It really is quite frightening, the fact that you’re not able to express opinions. We’ve screwed this up big time.
Do you have plans to put on a major exhibition at all?
I do now. I’m starting to get confident because of this book and the foreword that Nick wrote for it. I’m like, “Oh, maybe I should take shit a bit more serious, no?” I’m quite lucky now that I don’t I don’t teach anymore; I miss it, but I get to do this. It’ll be a small exhibition though. There’s something really nice about coming down in a day, setting up an exhibition, having everyone come, selling a few books, and then taking it all down and going. Like an event – it just works.
Do you think you’ll do another book at any point?
So there are books that are ready to go already. I was put forward for the Mack First Book Awards by Karen at the Photographer’s Gallery a few years back, and then the lady at Dashwood books nominated me again for another book. I feel that I’m ready to put those out there now.
I’ll tell you what I always wanted to do: I always wanted my photos for fashion stuff to connect, because I don’t like this idea that you just do a fashion shoot and that’s it. There’s a book by Nan Goldin that I’ve looked at and the more you read the text, you suddenly realise that ‘that’ photo was actually used for a DKNY shoot and it just happens to be in the book because it’s someone that she would shoot anyway. The people in my book? Three of them are from my original story for 10, and then I’ve shot them again for other things.
What’s next for you?
Definitely working on my archive stuff. I want to find ways I want to continue shooting these guys. Ideally, if I can shoot them commercially as well cause then they get some money. But just maintaining these relationships, because it gives me life; I find it insanely interesting. And if I can help or be involved in any way with what they’re doing, that’d be great.
My absolute dream would be to work with a brand. I’d love to do a book that basically allowed me to do bigger projects, just to see how it ties in with the fashion stuff because I approach it in the same way. It’d be a mix of edited stuff that was actually published, but also stuff that I didn’t get to put in because there just wasn’t enough room. It would be amazing to bring that out.
Photography by Dan Boulton. ‘Paris Youth’ by Dan Boulton is published by Chinagraph Books.
