About

Jacob Broadhurst is a photographer and artist who was born and lives in Stoke-on-Trent. The son of a painter, John Broadhurst, he has always enjoyed making images. But it was seeing an exhibition by Henri Cartier Bresson which sparked a fascination with photography as a teenager. 

He studied photography between 1997-2000 at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne and has a BA (Hons) degree. A highly influential moment came during this time while being a guide and assistant to street photographer Bruce Gilden. This was for Gilden’s assignment in the North East of England for Magnum Photos book project “GMT 2000 A Portrait of Britain at the Millennium.”

This project explored Britain in the days leading up to the start of the 21st century and took in varied locations from city centre Christmas shopping and nights out on “The Toon”, Boxing Day football, a workingmen’s club, and the microcosm of the international communities on board ships docked on Tyneside.

Since this time Broadhurst has worked commercially, taught at Newcastle under Lyme College, Staffordshire University, and been a visiting lecturer at Northumbria University. He has also delivered photography workshops in primary schools in Staffordshire.

Fascinated by people, architecture, landscape and occasions he turns his lens on the world around him wherever that may be. Producing work for personal projects has seen him document locations and subjects as diverse as Halloween in Utah, the high mountains of the Picos de Europa, the legendary lair of the Green Knight in the Peak District, to local community events in his home city.

Photography is a means of exploring, observing, capturing life and telling a story with the simple philosophy of going to places and photographing what is there. His work straddles documentary and the abstract and has been exhibited in galleries and venues throughout the UK.