Nick Waplington

The living room series -Nick Waplington

Nick Waplington is a British photography,  who spent four years documenting the daily lives of two working-class families on a council estate in Nottingham, England. Rather than embracing the contemporary photographic conventions of social realism, Waplington chronicled the lives of these families in saturated color, capturing an intimate narrative with poignancy and an unexpected humour.

His photographs are remarkable in a special way in which they make the intimate something public; something that we, who do not know personally the two families photographed, can look at without any sense or thrilled intrusion. Nick Waplington makes no dramatic social statements, but rather a quite touching matter-of-fact chronicle of the daily struggle of the working-class. In many ways, this makes the work a far more affecting critique of poverty. Living Room is a tender and poignant debut title, wonderfully documenting the physical and physiological dysfunctionality of families enduring the plight of economic deficiency.

Waplington’s work mostly his ‘Living room’ series intrigued and engaged me the most. As its very alluring and appealing for the audience to view. The way Waplington captures his shots is very welcoming and makes you want to be involved with the family. It’s very fascinating and intriguing to find out about the family itself. The last shot I have added, is personally my favourite shot as it brings that natural gritty feeling as it’s so usual to see in real life but not in a photography. It remind’s me of Billingham’s series of ‘Rays a laugh’ the way it is reasonably mysterious in the way of being so messy and gritty.