Release year: 2019

Binding: Softcover with a protective plastic cover with sticker

Pages: 176 pages

Size: 9.65 x 9.65 x 1.18 in (24.5 x 24.5 x 3 cm)

Publisher: Alasdair McLellan with M/M (Paris)

Edition: 1st Edition. Copies of 2000

‘I first met Blondey in early 2013. He was really quiet when I first shot him; he was only fifteen. There are certain people you meet, male or female, who just have a power to them, you can put anything on them and they really carry it off—Blondey had that.I remember getting the pictures back—and he’s probably not going to be very flattered by this—and I thought he had something of a very young Shaun Ryder about him. The thing is, Blondey never looked soft.’
—Alasdair McLellan

Blondey 15-21 is the fifth book by the photographer Alasdair McLellan and it his first to focus on a single subject: Blondey McCoy.

Meeting and photographing the skater when he was fifteen years old, McLellan has since gone on to photograph Blondey many times, covering each year since that initial meeting. Their close working relationship has gone on to define a distinct period of time in Blondey’s life, one that is a seven-year rites-of-passage story.

‘A lot has happened to Blondey since 2013. He is now 21 years old, on the cusp of turning 22—although, by his own admission, it feels more like 32. A weariness has crept into his demeanour. This replaced his earlier shyness. In between there has been drunkenness, obnoxiousness, coke bloat, fragility, vulnerability, charm, humorousness, imperiousness, kindness, intelligence, honesty —and sometimes all of the above, all at once. Along the way, he lost a front tooth—he can’t really remember how—and people have watched him being knocked over by a black cab many hundreds of thousands of times. He’s gone from Bambi to ennui, you can see it in his eyes; it’s all in the pictures.’
—Jo-Ann Furniss