Laura Pannack who was our PPRD guest speaker last week mentioned Simon Roberts, a British photographer whom she had at some point assisted and had cited as an inspiration and as her mentor. As I had liked her work so much, I thought I would take a look at his.....

For his project called 'We English', he spent 6 months driving around the British Isles with his wife and young daughter in a motor home. Being guided by people who wrote location suggestions for him to photograph on his blog, Simon used an old 5x4 field camera which he says "was quite laborious and often very public. I had anticipated that there might be problems in situations where there were lots of people close to the camera - like photographing on beaches - but by the time I'd finished setting up, any curious onlookers had lost interest and turned away, thereby allowing me to achieve very spontaneous images".







I think they are really beautiful and remind me of Gursky's landscapes although with a much more English flavour of course.

New York was great. I've come back with neck ache from looking up! Lots of photographic highlights. Favourite photographer we visited for me by far was Philip Toledano. his documentary projects all really related to things that I am interested in, especially the 'Phone Sex Workers' and the current 'Beauty' project he is working on now, photographing women and men who have undergone extensive plastic surgery. He talked about his subjects and how he approached them, he talked emotionally about his work 'Days with my Father' a really tender series of images which documented the time he spent with his dad in the last few months of his life. He came across as a genuine, funny, down to earth sort of person who was interested in people and was able to relate well with his sitters and consequently was able to portray them with compassion but honestly. I came away really liking him and his work.

Went on East Photographic's website and looked at the work of Tara Darby.
I was made aware of her by my favourite 3rd year student who had assisted her when he was a mere first year. What impressed me about her portfolio was the variety of her fashiony based work It seemed to me that she is able to turn her hand to most things, like I suppose a good commercial photographer should.

Finished PVC essay today.... At Last!! I am now free to think about other things. This week we have been given both of the photographic briefs that we have to complete by the end of March. Not only have we had to come up with the shoot ideas but research and plan them and present them to the relevant lecturers for critique and approval. My second tutorial is tomorrow just before lunch. All this and preparing for New York trip next week! Getting very excited now. Aaron Schman gave us his 'guide to New York' talk at the end of his PPRD lecture yesterday. He broke the hip neighbourhoods down for us by description to get our imaginations going and made a note of all the photographic exhibitions that are on while we are there. We will visit three photographers while we are there....


1) Ex Brit, Platon, Mainly portraiture and documentary magazine features. I looked him up on the net.......






2)Philip Toledano, another ex Brit.... Having seen his photos, I am really looking forward to meeting him!






....and 3) Chris Vereene, American documentary photographer, who has over the last 15-20 years documented his large family from American small town Gainsborough