CJGriffiths Photography

In Blackpool I could get a taxi within 5 minutes to go anywhere, a choice of an array of bars and some alternative indie or house music nights back in the 90’s. Miles and miles of coast line, an amazing fairground. I thought everywhere as a child had a fair and a beach, I was shocked to find my cousins in Bristol closest thing to leisure was The New Forest. Needless to say when I left The Pool – I discovered feeling home sick especially for the coast line and the friendly northerner.

It was at college I found out I was working class, it had never occurred to me before. I had been into the house music scene and bought into the Orwellian notion that everyone was equal. It was at college that it hit home that some were more equal than others and searched around for the art that spoke to me…..

I found Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Sam Taylor Wood, Sophie Calle, Bill Viola, Gillian Wearing and all of the YBA’s they spoke to me mainly through photography, theatre and film work. It must have fed into my Blackpool sentimentality of neon and performance, text and fantasy, crowds of people, self and otherness. Was I otherness? Sometimes being northern and coming from Blackpool it felt like it.

This is the place that gets photographed, people travel here to photograph the stags and hens, the blow up penises touring the many bars and pubs, how did this become typical? The tourists were not the people that lived here, I live here. As a teen, I somehow felt embarrassed, the town did not offer me anything. – Now in lockdown, I can see the Victorian buildings, the quite sound of the ocean, no interference of bad pop music or arcade sounds, no being heckled to play the side shows with me retorting, “I’m local”. The town has taken on an “Out of Season” feel. Out of season, the time when Blackpool felt like it might belong to the residents again.

But as it was at university I realise the pull of the place not just for me, but for visitors here.

The pubs and clubs are closed – longing to be filled with Karaoke and Kebab eaters again. I never visited The Tower Lounge when it was open in Blackpool – did I miss out? For now I will enjoy Blackpool’s new lockdown personality, knowing that one day folks will return to take what is rightfully theirs and I will share my home again.

Pubs in Lockdown Blackpool – Taken between March and May 2020

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Beats Cancer - Feeding the love through music. 

As an official old school raver circa summer 1990 when I was 16. The House music scene was officially underground then, I spent many a night roaming around Lancashire after an epic night in places such as #Legends in Warrington or #ManhattenHeights in #Blackburn the home of many an illegal warehouse party.

I had that familiar feeling when I entered #BeatsCancer over the weekend. Commissioned for the festival to photograph I felt quite ancient and when I spoke to a attendee who told me she thought she was fat at 25, I was like “I am 43, enjoy it”..........

The original scene was all about “letting go” not caring and being yourself in one accepted collective, the original Ravers thought they could change the world and create good. Beats Cancer met the brief of the “home grown” event and from the first year I photographed it, I was overwhelmed with its size!!! If only I was 18 again - but no matter as I can hide my face behind the camera. Big love Beats Cancer. 

Freedom, I think is mankind’s greatest want! The feeling of no commitment? We have it as children, we search for it as adults. I revisited my childhood when I attended the Cycle Festival, Eroica in The Peak District of The UK, felt free, enjoyed the sunshine and laid down in hay fields as bubbles passed over my head.