Thom Corbishley - Normal for Norfolk

Spanning over a decade of photos, Normal for Norfolk begins at the photographer’s final visit to his family’s holiday home in the Norfolk village of Snettisham, aged Fourteen. The series depicts subsequent visits to the surrounding towns and villages on the North Norfolk coast that the photographer frequented as a child. The series takes its title form the derogatory phrase used to exemplify the historically perceived strangeness and backwardness of the county.

The project began as an observation of the English coast, documenting the quirks, charms and contradictions of the seaside tourist destinations that once boomed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, now since in decline. This social documentary approach is fused with a biographical narrative, presenting the photographer’s long and changing relationship with the region and the people he associates with the area. Family excursions, drunken teenage weekend and professional trips capture the nostalgic rush of returning to the stages on which childhood is played out. Pastel paints are sun-faded, neon signs don’t burn as bright and the helter-skelter seems smaller than it used to.