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Elisabeth Blanchet's Winter of photos

Elisabeth spent the last months ...

photographing on Travellers' sites for the Channel 4 advertising campaign of the Big Fat Gypsy Weddings which resulted in huge posters all over the country. She met lovely families and even had the privilege to spend New Year's Eve and day with Big Brother celebrity Paddy Doherty. Channel 4 ended up choosing 4 photos but never they were going to print the controversial slogan 'Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier.' on them. Even though she is not responsible for the slogan, its use on her pictures puts her in a very uncomfortable position and is prejudicial to her work with Gypsies, Travellers and organisms representing them and more generally to her reputation.

Anyway, behind the posters some of you have probably seen or at least heard of, she would like to give you an insight of the life of the Gypsies and Travellers she met while working on this campaign.

For those watching the show, you'll recognise some familiar faces, backstage!

preparing her exhibition "Les orphelins de Ceausescu, 20 ans après" (Ceausescu's oprhans, 20 years on) at the Romanian Institute in Paris. The preview is on the 4th of April from 7.30. All readers are more than welcome. Please, keep the date! If you can't make it, the exhibition is running till the 31st of May. A book with 30 portraits of kids who grew up at the orphanage is on its way.

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spending a Sunday afternoon in Hampstead Heath with musician Colin Vearncombe, aka Black (Wonderful Life), a Wednesday night at the pub with Sir Ian McKellen and a Tuesday afternoon with French-born German politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit

 

 

tracking down the famous Robert Smousse in his secret Swiss retreat and convincing him to get back on the track and get hold of his inflatable guitar again

 

 

She then needed a bit of an aquatic break and added more pictures for sale in her Etsy online shop. Please, have a shopping spree!

 

While she was taking a break, her work on Romania was published in Professional Photographer

 

and in an amazing Romanian online magazine called Oitzarisme

 

and her photos on Gypsies and Travellers were published alongside Clover Stroud's very good and sincere article in Marie-Claire Australia : The Big Fat Gypsy Myth

 

 

Meanwhile, her fellow photographer, Grégoire Bernardi, was having the thrill of his life photographing witches in Glastonbury. She is happy to feature his great work

 

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Latest news on her Tumblr, website

www.elisabethblanchet.com and Facebook page

 

Enjoy the last days of Winter! See you soon