© Tom Hunter, Sex Assault, from the series Living in Hell and Other Stories, 2004
© Tom Hunter, Murder: Two Men Wanted, from the series Living in Hell and Other Stories, 2003
As Martin Herbert has written, “Bad news sells newspapers.” The Hackney Gazette, self-appointed mouthpiece of the East London borough where Tom Hunter lives and works, is not a free newspaper. As such it needs to gain the attention and money of its public, doing so by importing the standard tabloid formula of addicting its readership to a cocktail of horror and titillation: cue headlines like HALLOWEEN HORROR and LOVER SET ON FIRE IN BED…. The Gazette writers’ words must matter more than pictures, for a lack of photographic imagery will not stop this newspaper from running a front-page story. A curious mind will naturally tend to image the scene by itself, and such was the process that generated Hunter’s ongoing ‘Headlines’ series from the Gazette. These scenarios were isolated and turned into staged photographs, featuring friends and acquaintances and shot in Hackney.”
Source: Green on Red Gallery
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