Ed Gold

Ed Gold (born June 1969) is a British documentary photographer and photo-essayist who lives off-the-grid, exploring and documenting communities of people who live in remote areas.

Not to be confused with Edd Gould or Edward Gold.

Ed Gold
Gold in 2013
BornJune 1969 (age 51)
London, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materCentral Saint Martins
OccupationSocial documentary photographer, photojournalist
Years active1987–present
Known forSocial documentary photography and photo essays
StylePortraiture
Websitewww.edgold.co.uk

Early life and education

Gold has an MA in Interactive Multimedia from Central Saint Martins.[1]

While he was in graduate school he was homeless. After he graduated he worked at odd jobs and as a labourer. During that time he started teaching himself photography.[2] He was working as a security guard in 2002 when he quit in order to become a full time photographer.[2] He has since chosen to forego a home base to live among the communities he documents.[3][4]

Photojournalism projects

Gold freelances for the BBC, with which he works on photography projects.[5] When he documents a particular group of people, he embeds himself within their community for long durations, sometimes for up to three years.[3]

Gold has spent time living amongst the Iñupiat people in Wales, Alaska;[6][7][8][9] with residents of Galena, Alaska, who live near the Arctic Circle;[10] and with the Atchley family, who live in a remote area with no contact with the outside world apart from when they visit town once a year.[11][12] While in the USA, he documented Harley-Davidson enthusiasts at the House of Harley in Anchorage[13] and the US Army at the Northern Warfare Training Center.[14]

Gold has made four visits to the British Columbian First Nation reservation Prophet River where the Dane-zaa (historically referred to as the Beaver tribe by Europeans), are an Athabaskan-speaking group of First Nations people. His methods involve recording the experiences of those who live there, with associated portrait photography.[15]

One Donetsk female hunger-striking pensioner (left) and two male pensioners lie silently side by side in a military tent erected outside the Ukrainian government's pensions office at Donetsk Maidan.

In 2011, on a visit to Donetsk in the Ukraine, where he had come to look for traces of immigrants from Wales who had founded the city, Gold witnessed a group of pensioners in Donetsk town square, who were protesting about their pensions being cut. At the time of this photograph, one pensioner who had been on hunger strike had already died.[16]

Gold spent July 2010 to July 2011 embedded with the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment (2 Para), both at their base in Colchester and on the ground in Afghanistan. He followed the men from a single platoon before, during and after a tour of duty.[17][18][19] In 2018 he returned to investigate how some of the lives of the young soldiers he had met had changed. One soldier who had first enlisted at age 15 lost both legs while on active service and Gold's work documents his time in the army and thereafter.[20]

Gold lived and worked for a total of three years in Patagonia, in a community made up of descendants of Welsh people who arrived there in 1865.[4][21] The main published output of this stay was the work Welsh Patagonia. A copy is now stored in the British Library collection of artists’ books.[22]

Gold documented communities living off-grid in the UK when he visited Tinkers Bubble in Somerset.[23]

Solo exhibitions

Publications
  • Patagonia: Byd Arall / Otro Mundo / Another World. Publisher: Gomer Press, Llandysul, UK 2012. ISBN 978 1848514379
  • Wales: Portrait of an Alaska Village. Publisher: VP & D House, Anchorage, USA 2014. ISBN 978 0990742807
  • Welsh Patagonia. Publisher: Fox Ash Press, Lawford, UK 2016. ISBN 0 954845935
  • Yuendumu. Publisher: Blurb, 2018 ISBN 9780368331107

References
  1. "Ed Gold – Authors". Gomer.co.uk. Archived from the original on 10 January 2018. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
  2. Zhang, Michael (2 April 2018). "The Homeless Photojournalist Who Lends His Eyes to the World". PetaPixel.
  3. Chew, Patrick (27 February 2017). "A Disconnected Way of Living". New York Times Style Magazine: Singapore. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  4. "Photographer Ed Gold captures stunning images of Patagonian life". Walesonline.co.uk. 1 August 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  5. Gee, Alastair (30 November 2017). "Chronicling homelessness: the photographer living on streets all over the world". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  6. "In pictures: The other Wales". bbc.co.uk. 12 June 2013.
  7. David James (3 May 2015). "Up-close look at Wales, the westernmost community in North America". Anchorage Daily News.
  8. "Views of life in Wales... in the Alaskan wilds". North Wales Daily Post. 9 November 2009.
  9. "Photos: Wales, Portrait of an Alaska Village". Anchorage Daily News. 7 May 2015.
  10. "In pictures: Living near the Arctic Circle". bbc.co.uk. 1 December 2016.
  11. "One family's life in the wilderness". bbc.co.uk. 10 April 2017.
  12. "The Atchley Family: Living in the Alaskan Wilderness". Homeschooling Teen. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  13. "In pictures: Harley riders in the saddle". bbc.co.uk. 15 July 2015.
  14. "BBC Photographer Visits Alaska: Sub-Zero Survival Skills with the US Army in Alaska". KVAK. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  15. "In pictures: Life in Prophet River". bbb.co.uk. 11 October 2015.
  16. "Pensioners' protest" (PDF). Donetsk Maidan (in Russian). 25 November 2011. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  17. Hughes, Owen (28 February 2011). "Anglesey photographer captures life on front line in Afghanistan". North Wales Daily Post.
  18. "In pictures: Bedspaces in Afghanistan". bbc.co.uk. 30 January 2013.
  19. Adam Cornell (22 February 2011). "2 Para's war, as seen through Ed Gold's lens..." Gazette Standard.
  20. "From the Paras to civvy street: Life after the Army". bbc.co.uk. 19 March 2019.
  21. "Elsewhere". The Guardian. 27 January 2007.
  22. "Shelfmark HS.74/2461". December 2019. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  23. "Meet the photojournalist who lives out of a tent and documents lives of remote communities". Gazette. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  24. "Ed Gold: Other Worlds". www.essexmums.com.
  25. "Canolfan UCHELDRE Centre".
  26. North Wales Live (15 September 2005). "Vagabond with a vision". www.dailypost.co.uk. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  27. Gosling, Emily (19 June 2017). "Ed Gold's fascinating and beautifully shot depictions of rural Essex life". www.creativeboom.com. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  28. "Photographs reveal quirky world of Country Folk". bbc.co.uk. 16 June 2017. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
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