Her portraits are interspersed with moments that have caught her eye: a shirt hanging on a tree, flowers coming into bloom, or a statue at night. When the film comes back you have such a feeling of satisfaction.” “With film, you capture a moment you instinctively know you have the picture and move on. “The colours feel like they have more depth,” she says of her technique. Her soft, dreamy images recall the halcyon days of a bygone era – even though they were shot recently. Gaskin has travelled extensively throughout Eastern Europe, chronicling mainly beachgoers young and old. It’s this approach that makes Gaskin a perfect fit for ROADBOOK’s Focal Point series, which celebrates a new era of travel photography – one that moves away from imagery created for social media grids towards those that tell a story. It involves a lot of walking and getting familiar with my surroundings.” “The process has changed and developed over time. “I work in a documentary style, mainly with a mix of candid reportage images and still portraits”‘ she explains. But it’s in her personal work – shot on film – where Gaskin’s penchant for narrative, character and community comes to the fore.
Today, she’s based in London, where she shoots fashion and other editorial work, counting Valentino, Stella McCartney and Dazed among her clients. Hailing from Dublin, photographer Hazel Gaskin bought her first camera while travelling in Japan aged 19.