Harry Borden
Harry Borden is one of the UK’s finest portrait photographers and his work has appeared in many of the world’s foremost publications including The New Yorker, Vogue and Time.
He won prizes at the World Press Photo awards (1997 and 1999) and was a judge in the contest in 2010 and 2011. In 2005 he had his first solo show at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the organisation currently have 117 of his prints in their archive. In January 2017, his book ‘Survivor: A Portrait of the Survivors of the Holocaust’, was published by Octopus. Martin Parr said, “something really to behold…” and Alain de Botton declared it,​ “A masterpiece and deeply moving”. In 2018 it was judged one of the year’s 10 best photography books by the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation. His second book, Single Dad came out in March 2021.
He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
Projects
Survivor: A Portrait of the Survivors of the Holocaust (2017)
A distinctive and moving testimony of what it's like to live with Holocaust memories is found in Survivor.
Borden spent five years travelling the world and taking photos of Holocaust survivors. They range in age, gender, and nationality, but what unites them is that they have all lived through and survived one of the worst periods in human history.
There is a strong sense of intimacy between the sitter and reader because each photograph is accompanied by a handwritten statement from the subject. These notes can be poetry, memories, or even dreams for the future. The book's conclusion has a section with additional details about each subject, including how and what they endured as well as the historical context.
