Joshua Tarn is plagued with wanderlust. The British photographer – and prolific 10 Magazine contributor – captures elusive landscapes, fashion icons and eclectic cultures from around the world, glazing his unfeigned sights in photographic form.
His debut book, entitled This Could Be Paradise – or Esto Podría Ser El Paraíso – is an intimate dossier of his time abroad in Benidorm, purported to challenge the polarities of the city’s deep-seated stereotypes and explore its true atmosphere. It celebrates its vast versatility as more than just a British tourism hot spot or transient destination for your holibobs, but a cultural hub nurturing writers, musicians, surfers, filmmakers and more.
Inside, a candid vision of utopia comes to life, riddled with blue beach loungers and ocean views. Yummy mummies in mini dresses wander along the cobblestoned streets as old folks on rented vespas bumble past. Amid a mosaic of saturated beach umbrellas, palm trees and flamingo pool floats, sightseers run amuck; cotton candy skies and soft, sandy beaches are percolated by flocks of pigeons and cheap, dilapidated motels. The book, painted by the blue tarmac of a tennis court or the red lines of a bike lane, encapsulates a brief history of the Spanish coastal town, its subtropical climate and (pop)cultural outputs in both English and Spanish.
A destination Tarn had previously overlooked, he first travelled to Benidorm just last year on assignment. “I really knew nothing of the town, aside from passive references I had seen,” he recalls. “Without knowing what to expect, the skyline truly hit me as I arrived from Alicante airport. My first evening in Benidorm I realised Benidorm is a story in itself, and not the story lazily portrayed in the media. It does have the elements it’s famous for, but like everything in this world, there’s elements that balance it.” Tarn had been in Magaluf a month prior, working on another project, before setting sail for Spain’s South-Western coast. It was only when he came ashore that the idea to create a photo series centred around British tourism, or “’Brits Abroad’ as it’s less affectionately coined”, came to him.
Over the summer of ‘22, Tarn voyaged to Benidorm a number of times, bearing witness to the evolution of its tourism as the season progressed. “At the start of the summer there’s mostly British tourism, but towards the end there’s a majority of Europeans,” he explains. “The pace of the town changes over the summer too, feeling much more energetic in the earlier months.”
A town shrouded in misconceptions, perhaps due to the trashy TV show named for the holiday spot, Benidorm is so much more than it seems. “[The biggest misconception is] that the Brits forced their way of life on the town,” Tarn says, “[but] it’s actually the opposite. Pop culture, television, photographers peddling the stereotype. Benidorm has become an easy target for snobbish mockery, and thinly veiled jabs at the working class, but I guarantee the majority of those that mock the town have never set foot in it.”
“Bingo halls and ‘pub’ style offerings have been in Benidorm since the tourism boom in the 60’s. It was offered by locals as it was believed, rightly, that brits would appreciate home comforts when on holiday. This in turn encouraged more tourism and the cycle continued. Arguably this type of offering has overrun some parts of the town, but speaking to natives of Benidorm it seems this is very much a problem owed to the local council.”
“One of the most beautiful moments I saw was an elderly couple, around 70-80, attempting to speak Spanish at one of the local supermarkets. You could see they wanted to feel part of the community, and immerse themselves in the culture,” he recollects. “Learning a language at a young age is difficult enough, imagine the determination of the elderly couple.”
Tarn spotlights four Benidorm natives within the photobook – Freddie, Marcin, Mila and Aitor – each of whom he met organically as he discovered the city. “I love conversations, and would spark up conversations with anyone who would listen,” he explains. “The people I selected for the book all had a unique perspective from very different backgrounds. Mila came from Argentina for a more stable political landscape, Marcin from Poland so he could spend more time with his family after spending years working long hours in warehouses, and locals Freddy and Aitor who shunned offerings of the bigger cities to support the culture of Benidorm.”
This Could Be Paradise also looks at Benidorm’s distinctive architecture. Brutalist skyscrapers loom beside postmodern, Mediterranean style bungalows with stucco facades and terracotta roofs. Pastel hotels are ubiquitous with cantilevered balconies; bingo halls behold enormous neon signage. “Before Benidorm became the city it is today, it was a quiet fishing town,” he begins. “When Pedro Zaragoza, the champion of tourism in Benidorm, came to mayorship in the 1950’s, he wanted to design the town so as many people as possible could enjoy a view of the sea. The new towering buildings changed the aesthetic of the town, but with it changed the soul of the town too. The architecture is at the heart of what Benidorm is today.”
To celebrate its debut, Tarn is hosting a book launch and beach party hybrid event in Hackney, bringing Benidorm into the crux of London gloom and shattering the damaging misconceptions that surround it. “The reason I created the book is to encourage people to step out of their preconceptions, you never know where you might find joy,” Tarn concludes, pausing only briefly to add, “Also, it’s pretty…”.
Photography by Joshua Tarn.
