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The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay “A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine.  Fabulous!” Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
Nov2015 back issue
Lewes’ Bonfire Societies
by Patrick Ward
These photographs were taken over three colourful, noisy and smoke filled nights during 2013 and 2014 in the small town of Lewes, in East Sussex. Lewes is famous, some might say notorious, for its celebration of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and has seven Bonfire Societies which parade for glory on its streets on November the 5th each year. Two of these societies, Cliffe and Lewes Borough, were founded as early as 1853, with Commercial Square arriving just a year later, so it’s fair to say that friendly rivalries are long established. To photograph this project I was invited to the Nevill Juvenile Bonfire Society’s parade, in a quiet residential district of Lewes, which took place at the end of October and which I think was a kind way of preparing me for the thunderous events I covered later on November 5th. The first five images are from this parade. Earlier in the year I had approached and the met up with the Chairman and Secretary of the Waterloo Bonfire Society, a much younger society dating from 1964, and they allowed me to join them on their parades over two Guy Fawkes nights. This made all the difference, as I was able to shoot as an insider and follow their activities throughout the night. Wearing their red and white uniform, now much prized, helped too! This is a wonderfully atmospheric event, well worth seeing with or without a camera, but do take earplugs and eye protection. Injuries have been mercifully few in recent years, thanks to the well run Societies, but can happen. Some of these images appear in Patrick’s book, Being English, available from the Bluecoat Press.
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