"An Audience With Anna Fox" - University for the Creative Arts, Farnham Campus, Surrey - 7th May 2014.
My tutor, Sharon pictured above (left) with Anna, had suggested that this event would be a good presentation for me to attend. Anna is Professor of Photography at UCA. The aim of the event was to hear a photographer talk about her own practice, to ask questions about her work, and to network with other students.
Anna outlined her background in photography starting at a young age and gradually getting more and more involved in it until it became her main area of study and then her career. I had previously studied her website and read an interview she had done. I knew this was going to be a baptism for me into contemporary photography!
Anna's earlier projects seemed very different from the sort of photography I had previously been interested in - cockroaches, the contents of her mother's cupboards, people hung over from rave parties, and bodies in fields based on a murder many years ago made me wonder what she was really like! She was interesting and her presentation images confirmed the images I had previously studied in her early projects mentioned above. Her more recent projects capturing life in Butlins and a commission in France based on leisure made more sense to me. - but that's natural as contemporary photographers at Ffotogallery Wales have described my photography as very commercial.
There were a number of things I liked and learnt from the event to balance my earlier confusion about her work.
Firstly, she emphasised the importance of networking in photography to open doors to new projects. This rang true to me as I have seen the importance of networking generally in life and it was appealing to see this related specifically to success in photography such as gaining commissions.
I also liked her use of narrative with her office project and the idea of getting quotes from other peoples wise writings to support or contradict an image appeals to me. Her views about documentary photography as opposed to reportage photography and whether we are always representing the truth was interesting. Being able to talk to your subjects before you photograph them was mentioned. Since doing a recent street photography course and hearing Anna talk about this I feel much more confident and this is often an area where photographers struggle.
My favourite image in her whole presentation was the images of distorted people in a number of mirror in a dance studio. I am going to try that in a location I have in mind!
Her most interesting comment for me was her statement that "No matter how close you get to people, the camera takes you out of it" giving the example of even photographing people who know you in your local pub makes you outside the group once you have your camera. "The Therapist with the lens" as she put it.
Regarding her commissions, I found the French leisure commission the most interesting where she stitches several images together. I am familiar with panoramic photos but not ones where you create the scene by adding (or subtracting) different people using a set of images against the same backdrop but capturing different people at different times. I am going to try that sometime but it will not be with a large format film camera and a team of assistants to help me.
Overall. the presentation made me think more about how Anna was relating her early photography to events in her life and how her projects are changing in style as her photography has developed and the assets and resources available to her have grown. An excellent day and some good networking and learning from other students which was the third objective of the day. Also, I was able to ask my tutor Sharon some questions about preparing my first assignment.
Anna outlined her background in photography starting at a young age and gradually getting more and more involved in it until it became her main area of study and then her career. I had previously studied her website and read an interview she had done. I knew this was going to be a baptism for me into contemporary photography!
Anna's earlier projects seemed very different from the sort of photography I had previously been interested in - cockroaches, the contents of her mother's cupboards, people hung over from rave parties, and bodies in fields based on a murder many years ago made me wonder what she was really like! She was interesting and her presentation images confirmed the images I had previously studied in her early projects mentioned above. Her more recent projects capturing life in Butlins and a commission in France based on leisure made more sense to me. - but that's natural as contemporary photographers at Ffotogallery Wales have described my photography as very commercial.
There were a number of things I liked and learnt from the event to balance my earlier confusion about her work.
Firstly, she emphasised the importance of networking in photography to open doors to new projects. This rang true to me as I have seen the importance of networking generally in life and it was appealing to see this related specifically to success in photography such as gaining commissions.
I also liked her use of narrative with her office project and the idea of getting quotes from other peoples wise writings to support or contradict an image appeals to me. Her views about documentary photography as opposed to reportage photography and whether we are always representing the truth was interesting. Being able to talk to your subjects before you photograph them was mentioned. Since doing a recent street photography course and hearing Anna talk about this I feel much more confident and this is often an area where photographers struggle.
My favourite image in her whole presentation was the images of distorted people in a number of mirror in a dance studio. I am going to try that in a location I have in mind!
Her most interesting comment for me was her statement that "No matter how close you get to people, the camera takes you out of it" giving the example of even photographing people who know you in your local pub makes you outside the group once you have your camera. "The Therapist with the lens" as she put it.
Regarding her commissions, I found the French leisure commission the most interesting where she stitches several images together. I am familiar with panoramic photos but not ones where you create the scene by adding (or subtracting) different people using a set of images against the same backdrop but capturing different people at different times. I am going to try that sometime but it will not be with a large format film camera and a team of assistants to help me.
Overall. the presentation made me think more about how Anna was relating her early photography to events in her life and how her projects are changing in style as her photography has developed and the assets and resources available to her have grown. An excellent day and some good networking and learning from other students which was the third objective of the day. Also, I was able to ask my tutor Sharon some questions about preparing my first assignment.