Jai Ashton Photography

Seasonaire 20/21

The British season has always been somewhat of an enigma. If you have ever been skiing in France they are there, cooking the meals, pouring the drinks and driving the transfers. As central as they are to the ski industry, the Oxford Dictionary holds no definition for the term ‘seasonaire’. It seems as if even the name for this group of people is entirely unknown to those who have not ‘done a season’ and even less is known of how they live, work and play.

The season of 20/21 has been one like no other, with it being the first time for nearly a century that some resorts have had no ski lifts running, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is also the first year of Britain’s exit from the European Union and with it a loss of workers’ rights for seasonaires. However this did not stop some seasonaires from continuing to try and live the life that many know so little about.

This book serves to show what it is to be a seasonaire and expose the daily lives of the young British people that are the backbone of the French ski industry. It will also document the only year in which the resorts have been closed down and British citizens being unsure of their future in Europe for the first time.

The images in this book were taken primarily in the small ski resort of Peisey Vallandry in the Tarentaise valley of Savoie, France

Topographic Tarentaise

The Tarentaise Valley of the Savoy region of France is home to some of the world most renowned ski resorts and as a result some unique architecture.

The aim of this project is to convey the vernacular of this special environment by producing a series of images, from a number of resorts and displayed in a photo-book format.

I have drawn inspiration from the New Topographics of 1970’s America. As here in the Tarentaise there is a keen example of a man altered landscape.

Bayrische Ausgangssperre

This work is from my book Bayrische Ausgangssperre or Bavarian Curfew. It is the fly on the wall observation of a lad from Lancashire living with a Bavarian family during lock down. In March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped Europe, it became evident that borders would be shut. Michael and Catharina Brecht from Bavaria, Germany, who have four children studying abroad, called them home so that during this period of uncertainty they could be together. This work documents how a family so used to living apart, have returned to live together during this pandemic and how they have coped in a period of global crisis.