Following on from Murray Ballard’s miniclick photography talk in October we have Mr Peter Dench coming down to do a talk for us, in association with Hungry Eye Magazine and incorporating the first ever “Dench Diaries Live” (at least, in Brighton…). Anyone who has read Peter’s Dench Diaires will already know they’re a cracking read – the highly entertaining journal of the ups and downs of a sometime-working-pro and one of the brightest British documentary photographers working today.

The talk is on Tuesday, November 1st (talk starts at 7:30pm, doors at 6pm)…

A man holding a can of high strength lager carries a baby on Blackpool promenade. The city has been attracting visitors ever since 1735, when the first guest house opened. In the 19th century, it became a popular working-class destination among the English.

Three Muslim men chat on a bench as a Cobb’s horse parades through the Oxfordshire town of Banbury as part of the annual hobby horse festival.

The Estelle Clifton Dancers in their dressing room change for a show at the Hippodrome Circus in Great Yarmouth, the last remaing dedicated English circus building. Built by showman George Gilbert in 1903, Houdini and Chaplin are once said to have wowed the crowd there.

A woman with a plastic glass of champagne talks on her mobile phone at the inaugural British sand polo event on Sandbanks beach. Sandbanks is a small dune on the south coast in the county of Dorset and one of the most expensive places to live on the planet.

“Peter Dench weighed into the world a hefty 10lb 8oz’s. He was born on the feast of Saint George, the patron saint of England and shares a birthday with Shakespeare, arguably the greatest ever Englishman that has ever lived. From Dench’s first breath the salty air of the English Channel permeated his nostrils, the sounds of seagulls crashed into his eardrums, saturated colours startled the retina; bumper boats, Punch & Judy, arcades, striped deck-chairs. This was his his introduction to England and he was hooked.

Looking through the books of Martin Parr, Greg Leach, Paul Reas and Elliot Erwitt, Dench decided to take photography as a career seriously. If you could travel the world, make people laugh and think, that was a fine way to live. If you could do it with a drink in your hand, that was the life for Dench. Dench has been combining his seaside sense of humour with his passion for photography and drink ever since. His project documenting the imbibing habits of his countrymen picked up a World Press Photo Award. In 2010 he placed second in Advertising at the Sony World Photography Awards. In 2011, England Uncensored – A Decade of Photographing the English, was exhibited at the Visa pour L’image festival of photojournalism.  With hindsight, it was perhaps inevitable that one day the world would see, The Dench Diary, a laugh out lout account of his life as a sometime working pro, in print , video and online for Hungry Eye Magazine”.

Tuesday, November 1st at The Old Market in Brighton & Hove (11a Upper Market St, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 1AS). It will kickoff at around 7:30pm (doors at 6:00pm). Get there early as the seats get snapped up quick! Entry is free, but there is a bar there that stays open after the talk, so bring some cash and support the venue by having a drink or two.

Hope to see you there!