An Asian Odyssey that has taken me through a vast swathe of territories, from cursed mountain tops to desolate plains and concrete jungles; coups, revolutions, tribal wars, acts of God and ecstatic animist rites of fire, blood and gunpowder.

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A life spent following my gut and my emotions, drawn to the down-trodden and the oppressed; the ilk who always welcome you to share fears and laughter, content to know that someone else in a more forgiving place will offer them a chance to exist outside of their harsh reality, someone who will speak of their selfless deeds once they are gone. They are my kind and those moments shared when we feared our hearts would break have been life's most precious gifts. I cherish every hug and tear shed.

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Asia continues to nurture me as I search for the sublime and the inevitable links to past worlds that my interactions invoke.

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Over time this region has defined me.

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Without the witness, who can speak of it?

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Plaudits

 

• “since arriving in Asia, Blenkinsop’s name has become synonymous with forgotten conflicts and the photography of injustice.” (Gary Knight) 

 

• “Blenkinsop’s work articulates a new and forensically real Asia. He delivers this new vision with a truth that is reminiscent of Robert Frank’s epic and ground breaking re-definition of the USA in the mid-1950’s” (Max Pam)

 

• “Death enters without knocking in Blenkinsop’s work, where severed heads and abandoned bodies are reminiscent of the vision of Joel Peter Witkin, with the difference that Blenkinsop's horror dispenses with staging and artifice, leaving room for the glory of warriors in the manner of Curtis. Blenkinsop's aesthetic bias is in line with his personal commitment to minorities confronted by government forces in Thailand, Burma, Nepal and Laos. More than a reporter, Blenkinsop is a man of guerrillas and resistances.” (Herve Le Goff)

 

• “one of the most essential photographers of his generation" (Christian Caujolle)

 

• “Blenkinsop’s photographs are raw, harsh and complex at the same time. Uncomfortable even. But even better, they are empathetic. They make us think, but they make us love, too. Therein lies probably the essence of Philip Blenkinsop’s work: the tension between violence and tenderness, between animality and compassion.” (Frederic Lecloux) 2015

 

• “Philip Blenkinsop is a fearless photojournalist with a truly original sensibility. He makes stark, powerful images that are unforgettable.” (Kathy Ryan, Picture Editor, New York Times Magazine)

 

• “Over the past decade Philip Blenkinsop has established himself as a major photojournalist in a field awash with talent. In Australia he is without peer. The searing honesty of his work marks him as a photographer who is authentically original and one of the few great photojournalists contributing to the global printmedia today.” (Max Pam, Artist and Educator) 2004

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