Hazel Gaskin photographs Albania | a cart on a beach in Durres groans with colourful merchandise, like inflatable rings in a rainbow of colours

Focal Point: Hazel Gaskin on Albania

Last updated: August 22, 2024

Editorial photographer Hazel Gaskin travelled through Albania to create a personal body of work that mixes candid reportage with portraiture

Hailing from Dublin, photographer Hazel Gaskin bought her first camera while travelling in Japan aged 19. Today, she’s based in London, where she shoots fashion and other editorial work, counting Valentino, Stella McCartney and Dazed among her clients. But it’s in her personal work – shot on film – where Gaskin’s penchant for narrative, character and community comes to the fore.

“I work in a documentary style, mainly with a mix of candid reportage images and still portraits”‘ she explains. “The process has changed and developed over time. It involves a lot of walking and getting familiar with my surroundings.”

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.

Gaskin has travelled extensively throughout Eastern Europe, chronicling mainly beachgoers young and old. Her soft, dreamy images recall the halcyon days of a bygone era – even though they were shot recently.

“The colours feel like they have more depth,” she says of her technique. “With film, you capture a moment; you instinctively know you have the picture and move on. When the film comes back you have such a feeling of satisfaction.”

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.

“With these images, I’m documenting the journey, trying to get a sense of the place through my image-making process,” she continues, speaking of her photographs of Albania and Romania. “From the outsider’s perspective, I was trying to capture similarities and differences between Western and European environments. Also, I travelled there from Montenegro, and it was interesting observing the shift between these two countries – there is a strong focus on beach culture.”

Gaskin is always looking forward to her next destination. “Many interesting things are happening right now in photography – there’s almost an overload. The story always inspires me, and there has to be a deeper meaning to work,” she reflects. “I’m often drawn to places where the boundaries have shifted over the years. That can be on a macro or micro scale – place and space, and how we inhabit these.”

Hazel Gaskin photographs Albania | A boy raises his arm, tattooed with spiders, against a concrete backdropHazel Gaskin photographs Albania | a photo of a young boy smoking in Tirana

Hazel Gaskin photographs Albania | a woman in a black bikini wearing a bucket cap closes her eyes against the sun while lying on a sunlounger on a beach

Hazel Gaskin photographs Albania | A group of boys on a wooden jetty jutting out into a body of water, getting ready to jump inHazel Gaskin photographs Albania | A pale-pink rose bush in full bloom against a white fence
Hazel Gaskin photographs Albania | a crate full of pinkish-red apples, still attached to leaves and branches
Hazel Gaskin photographs Albania | a woman in a white headscarf and robe on the beach, with other beachgoers behind herHazel Gaskin photographs Albania | a cart on a beach in Durres groans with colourful merchandise, like inflatable rings in a rainbow of colours
Hazel Gaskin photographs Albania | A boy plays in a rippling pool, with the sunlight flashing off the water's surface
Hazel Gaskin photographs Albania | A metal statue of a woman's body in a square at nightHazel Gaskin photographs Albania | a white wifebeater hanging upside down to dry against a tree
Photography

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