- Nickname: acfd
Since graduating from West Surrey College of Art and Design in 1988, I have worked as a documentary photographer undertaking personal projects and portraits and features photography for various magazines including Guardian Weekend, The Sunday Times magazine and Gourmet (USA) as well as a wide range of commissions and residencies nationally and internationally. In 2004, I completed a M.A. in Photography at De Montfort University, Leicester.
As a photographer, I have a particular interest in different landscapes and the way they are shaped by human activity. Working closely with communities and individuals, my work explores people’s relationship to the environment.
My most recent project Home Work was published by Dewi Lewis in 2010 and was exhibited and published nationally and internationally including the Land exhibition as part of the Noorderlicht Festival, 2010. Home Work was the result of two six month periods living in Vietnam, exploring domestic labour in the suburbs and villages in and around Hanoi. Images from this project were also published in Private n.51 – Global Report 2, International Review of Photographs (2010) and Portfolio, Contemporary Photography in Britain #48 (2008) and in Geographical magazine (February 2010).
Previous projects include Hand to Mouth which explores the lives of villagers and nomadic shepherds in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains, a way of life threatened by EU enlargement. Made over a period of four years, Hand to Mouth was first exhibited and published by Impressions Gallery, Bradford in Autumn 2007. Images from this project were also published in 8 photojournalism in June 2005, Frankfurter Rundshau Magazin (Germany), in 2006 and Daylight Magazine Issue #7, Agriculture in 2008. Hand to Mouth was also shortlisted for the Descubrimientos PHE Award at PhotoEspaña in 2006.
Other projects include Moor and Dale, which was exhibited and published by The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate and shown at various venues in the UK including Hereford Photography Festival, 2004. Lamb, commissioned by The Culture Company, was shown at Impressions Gallery, York, in 2000. Eat Better, Eat British received an Honourable Mention in the Leica Oskar Barnack Award and was shown at Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France in 2000.
My work consists of elements of landscape, portraiture and documentary photography. Most recently, I have also included still lives, photographing items belonging to the people I am working with, setting up a basic mobile studio in their homes or using a scanner and laptop computer.
My work draws attention to observing details which we usually let slip by unnoticed and aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the changing nature of rural life.
In 2010, I was artist in residence at Jyväskylä Printmaking Centre in Central Finland and undertook a commission for Hereford Photography Festival about the Hereford cow. I am currently working on Field, Forest and Family, working with the ethnic minority women in south west China and have recently received a G4A Award from Arts Council England to continue this work in Laos during 2011.
I am represented by Zoe Bingham Fine Art in London and Klompching Gallery in New York.
