Jonathan Olley

Jonathan Olley (born London 1967) is an internationally renowned British photographer.

Early Career

Olley attended Chelsea School of Art in 1985 with the intention of studying fine art. When he discovered the war photography of W.Eugene Smith, Don McCullin and Lee Miller, he determined that photography was the best way to combine his artistic and social interests. However the dean at Chelsea did not agree and Olley was ejected. Despite this, Olley persuaded the post-graduate course at the University of Wales Newport School of Documentary Photography to take him on. In 1989, he began work as a freelance photographer, regularly supplying the national press with news photographs. In 1990, he won the Nikon Press Award for a photo essay in the Independent newspaper. Between 1991 and 93, Olley covered stories on the collapse of the Berlin wall and the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in Czechoslovakia for the UK press. At the end of 1993 he relocated from London to New York.

In New York, he joined Network Photographers and continued to work as freelance photographer, beginning a project in New Mexico and Nevada, USA, on the Atomic Bomb.

The Siege of Sarajevo

In 1994, he traveled to Bosnia to live under siege in Sarajevo, taking news photographs for the Boston Globe, Paris Match, L’Express & The Guardian newspaper. On February 5th, 1994, he found himself caught up in what became known as the market massacre in Sarajevo where 68 people were killed and 200 others were fatally wounded. Bosnian Serbs were blamed for the mortar attack and in turn they accused Bosnian Muslims of staging the massacre in order to force western intervention. Either way, Olley came to feel that the media was complicit in the carnage.

This episode became a turning point in Olley’s style and approach to war reporting. Olley’s images of the Market Massacre were exhibited at Visa pour L’Image in Perpignan, France in 1994, and his photo essay on Sarajevo won him the Observer Hodge Award as the Young Photojournalist of the Year in 1995. However, by then, Olley was becoming more reflective about his work, moving away from breaking news toward a more considered approach to photography.

Photo Essays and Personal Projects

Upon receiving a bursary to complete his Atom Bomb project, Olley travelled to Japan to complete the project in Hiroshima & Nagasaki. The A-bomb exhibition opened at The Photographers Gallery, London to popular & critical acclaim.

In 1996, he began another personal project on the ‘Newbury Bypass’ road protests in the forests of Berkshire for inclusion in a group work for the Millennium.

In 1997 and 1998 he won two first prizes at the World Press Photo Awards. Awarded ‘first prize stories: Nature & Environment’, for the essay on the Newbury Bypass road protest and ‘first prize stories: Arts’, for his essay on the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. In the same year, he undertook a project for an exhibition to celebrate 50 years of the National Health Service. This work was widely published in Britain and Europe and exhibited in over 50 NHS hospitals in the U.K.

At this point, Olley began what would become perhaps his most celebrated work: a 5x4-landscape project on Barracks and police stations in Northern Ireland – entitled ‘Modern Castles of Northern Ireland’.

Modern Castles of Northern Ireland

Completed in 1989, Olley’s ‘Modern Castles of Northern Ireland’ captures the architecture of 'the troubles' of Northern Ireland; fortified police stations, watchtowers and army barracks.

Originally published in Source Magazine, this work became widely published around the world and was first exhibited at Festival International Du Reportage, Perpignan, France. It would later be shown at the ICA (London, UK), the Letterkenny Arts Centre, (Co.Donnegal, Rep.Ireland) and the Noorderlicht Photofestival (Groningen, Netherlands).

In 2003, it was collected for the nation by the Public Records Office and The Imperial War Museum, London.

These powerful images contain an incredible level of detail, yet retain an ominous overall sense of drama. The structures emanate an alien incongruity - one breaks the terraced main street of what looks like a country town, its presence seeming to demand that the irenic structures of ordinary architecture must give way to these armed sentinels, meshed objects that embody the failure of politics and civic values. Since these pictures were taken, many of these interloping constructions have been dismantled as part of the Peace Process, lending Olleys series even more of an otherworldly atmosphere. As a visual document, it represents both a memorial of sorts and a record of a pivotal historic moment of transition. Many regard “Castles of Ulster” as one of the most important documentary projects produced in the UK for decades.

Kosovo

In 1999, Olley traveled to Macedonia during the refugee crisis and continued work in Kosovo after the liberation. The resultant book, ‘Kosovo’ was published by Network Photographers and the ’Partners’. The book is sold to make money for The International Red Cross and featured the work of Sebastao Salgado, Jonathan Olley and Joachim Ladeofoged. In 2000 the book won the D&AD (Design & Art Directors) Award for Olley’s photography.

Later Work

During the 2000’s Olley worked on a diverse variety of - often socially conscious -projects. These included the colour large format landscape project ‘Between Home & Heaven’ on the uninhabited volcanic Island of Surtsey, Iceland, ‘Fairy Stones’, an examination of myth and superstition and its effects upon modern Icelandic society and ‘Engineering Nature’, about humankind’s desire to create an ‘Edenic’ landscape, taking into account land use management, reclamation, leisure use of the landscape and car culture.

In 2004, he traveled to Iraq, to continues a project seeking to create visual art that conceptualises the relationships between the human and natural worlds.

The Forbidden Forest

This theme is continued in his most recent work, ‘The Forbidden Forest’, in which he continues to explore the peripheral effects of warfare on the landscape – this time undertaking a study of live ammunition abandoned in theatres of war. These images here focus on the battle for Verdun, in a vast area of Northeast France known as the ‘Zone Rouge’, today it covers approximately 450 square miles, with no public access since the armistice of 1918.

During the battle of Verdun, 21 February to 18 December 1916, this landscape played host to one of the deadliest battles of the First World War. There were a total of 708,777 casualties from both the French and German sides, 120,000 of which remain on the battlefield with no known grave. Over sixty million shells were fired during the 10 - month battle, where one shell in four contained toxic gas and one shell in five failed to explode. In some places two hundred shells fell for every square metre. Almost 100 years later, vast quantities of live ammunition render the land unusable. Untouched and overgrown, the polluted and dangerous hills now literally resemble a wild enchanted forest, whose overgrown surface masks the deadly reality of its grim liberator beneath.

Part of the Treaty of Versailles required Germany to accept sole responsibility for causing the First World War, and under the terms of articles 231-248, (later known as the War Guilt clauses), forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and make reparations to certain countries that had now formed the Entente powers. One especially peculiar aspect of this treaty was to ‘make-good’ the landscape around Verdun by planting trees. Today the battlefields are a vast forest network of Oak, Beech and Fir, which now act as a veil over the rampant destruction wrought here 90 years ago.

‘The Forbidden Forest’ was exhibited alongside ‘Castles of Ulster’ at Diemar/Noble Photography, London, in 2009.

Current Activity

Now based in London, he currently teaches part-time on the Documentary Photography course at the University of Wales, Newport, but remains a freelance photographer, undertaking various assignments around the world.

A collection of the images from the book ‘Castles of Ulster’ will be in the touring exhibition ‘Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera’ beginning at the Tate Modern 28th May – 19th September 2010, curated by Sandra Phillips at SFMOMA.

External links

• Official Website
• Gallery Representation
• 3 Minute Wonder - Channel 4 short film