Jacobs are doing some building work next month and we won’t have access to the Pro Lounge for an October show. Apologies to you all.
We should be back as usual in November and we’re hoping to have shows by people who have self published books of their work. More details nearer the time.
For our September Photo-Forum we’re pleased to announce presentations from Lottie Davies and Jane Hilton.
Lottie Davies was born in Guildford, UK, in 1971. She had a conventional childhood in Surrey with her parents and two brothers, and was educated in Alton and Godalming. After a degree in philosophy at St Andrews University in Scotland, she moved back to England to learn the photographic trade as an assistant in London, where she has since been based. Davies has been working as a professional photographer since 2000.
Davies’ unique style has been employed in a variety of contexts, including newspapers, glossy magazines, books and advertising. She has won recognition in numerous awards, including the Association of Photographers’ Awards, the International Color Awards, and the Schweppes Photographic Portrait Awards. Her work garnered international acclaim with the image Quints, which won First Prize at the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Awards 2008 at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
As a photojournalist, she focuses on lesser-known communities and on ethno-political issues, putting forward a sharply critical view of contemporary Western complacency, with a desire to illuminate the lives of those often overlooked.
Her travel and editorial work is wide-ranging, from highly-produced set-pieces to more journalistic imagery, and this breadth of experience in varying approaches informs the fine art work for which Davies is rapidly becoming known.
Her fine art work is concerned with stories and personal histories, the tales and myths we use to structure our lives: memories, life-stories, beliefs. She takes inspiration from classical and modern painting, cinema and theatre as well as the imaginary worlds of literature. She employs a deliberate reworking of our visual vocabulary, playing on our notions of nostalgia, visual conventions and subconscious ‘looking habits’, with the intention of evoking a sense of narrative and movement. Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, has described Davies’ work as “brilliantly imaginative”.
Jane Hilton, photographer and filmmaker lives in London. She started out as a classical musician, graduating in 1984 with a BA (Hons) in Music and Visual Art from Lancaster University. Her love of photography brought her to London, working as an assistant for numerous fashion and advertising photographers before going it alone in 1988. Early work included both fashion and editorial alongside her documentary projects which are the mainstay and passion of her work today.
“My work is about the extraordinary realities of ordinary people’s everyday lives, revealing their individual characteristics and ways of being that one so often overlooks”.
It was on her first trip to Arizona in 1988, that she discovered an obsession for America and American culture. The contradictions in American society and the American dream is a recurring theme. Her work in Las Vegas is an epitome of this, where the line between fantasy and reality is constantly blurred. The transient nature of Vegas mixed with the incessant gambling philosophy provides a unique breeding ground for characters who live out these contradictions. Her series “Forever Starts Now” on the McDonalds’ style wedding culture illustrates this.
From proclamations of everlasting happiness in Vegas, Jane hit the empty desert roads of Nevada ending up 350 miles away near Reno, where a roadside brothel called ‘Madam Kitty’s Cathouse’ caught her eye. This chance encounter became a two year project and resulted in a ten-part documentary series for the BBC, “The Brothel / Love For Sale”, as well as a series of exhibitions on desert landscapes, pimps and prostitutes.
Inspired by a commission in 2006 to photograph a 17 year old cowboy, Jeremiah Karsten, who travelled 4,000 miles on horseback from his native Alaska to Mexico, Jane set off on her own four year pilgrimage, criss-crossing the cowboy states of Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Texas, New Mexico and Wyoming to capture America’s 21st century cowboys which has culminated in her recently published book – Dead Eagle Trail.
Jane’s work is regularly published in The Sunday Times Magazine and The Telegraph Magazine.
Fire regulations limit us to 100 people in Jacobs’ Pro Lounge. We rarely hit this limit but if you can come a few minutes early there’s less chance of being bounced if the evening proves more popular than usual.
For our August Photo-Forum we’re pleased to announce presentations from Emily Ainsworth and Andre Camara.
Emily Ainsworth writes: I was born, and grew up, and studied English at Oxford. Before I started studying Anthropology at Cambridge, I joined the circus in Mexico. I began working as a dancer, and taking photographs. I was recording the time that I spent in and out of the ring for a BBC documentary and I started taking these photographs because I didn’t want to forget the vitality and vulnerability of the life that I had there. The pictures which I will be showing are all of people that I know and love, and have shared nits and cigarettes with.
I was made a National Geographic Explorer, and since then have had the chance to return and document this life of flesh and transcendence; of blood and sweat and sequins. Mexico has more circuses than any other country in the world – three hundred pitch in the capital. Mexican aerialists always win gold at the Monte Carlo Circus World Championships, and many performers have seven generations of circus blood running through their veins. The circus community’s existence from mainstream society is however, rigidly and ostentatiously separate, and there are very few media depictions of life behind the curtain. I will also be showing photographs from other projects in Mexico, of midget bullfighters, and of the Days of the Dead.
Born 1969, award winning photographer Andre Camara started work as a press photographer at the age of 15 for the Brazilian “Jornal do Brasil”. He juggled school and work until he went to read history in the PUC University of Rio. He covered the 1986 World Cup for that newspaper among other big assignments. At the age of 17 he was the only photographer to face a drug dealers’ war in a Rio slum and captured such an incredible set of images of the armed gangsters that they prompted a national outcry forcing the police to intervene, invade the slum and kill them all. Twenty years later it inspired the famous film “City of God”.
Now based in London, Andre worked for Associated Press, being the only photographer in Baghdad for months during the first Gulf War and having his pictures published all over the world. Then at Reuters, where he won his first awards for coverage of the IRA bombing in the City of London, used in all main newspapers around the world. For Reuters Andre worked through the setting-up of their UK pictures service and for years was the news agency photographer with the most publications in England and worldwide.
In 1994 Andre covered the USA World Cup for Reuters and then moved to The Times, where he won another 5 Awards in Britain. For The Times Andre has covered 8 Cannes Film Festivals, Venice film festivals and Biennales, Fashion Weeks , Royal trips, and has been in dozens of countries on different assignments. In the London 7th July terrorist attack Andre produced the iconic picture of a woman leaving a station with her burnt face in a mask which was displayed as the whole front page of The Times and other newspapers worldwide
Fire regulations limit us to 100 people in Jacobs’ Pro Lounge. We rarely hit this limit but if you can come a few minutes early there’s less chance of being bounced if the evening proves more popular than usual.
As always we’ll raffle prints from the photographers showing their work to help fund Photo-Forum. The raffle pays for food in the pub after the show (so please come along to share a plate and a glass!) with donations to good causes when there’s any left over.
The Photo-Forum raffle is the cheapest ever way to own a print from one of today’s leading photographers, please support it and you could win some great work for just a few pounds.
If you’d like to show your work at Photo-Forum or would like to suggest a photographer for a show please email us at photoforumuk@gmail.com.
For our July Photo-Forum we’re pleased to announce two first class photographers: Hazel Thompson and Adam Hinton.
Hazel Thompson is a British multi award winning photojournalist based in London. After beginning her photographic career in 1997 with a local newspaper in South London, Hazel now works freelance on assignments worldwide for leading international publications such as the New York Times, the Observer Magazine, Le Monde 2, Politiken, and many others. She is Director and Chief Photographer for True Image Media in London and a founding member of Scarlet, a creative change media agency based in Los Angeles. Hazel is also a speaker and workshop facilitator for international conferences and festivals and has been chosen as a participant of the Photojournalism Think Tank at the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
Hazel’s passion is to photograph social and humanitarian subjects with injustice towards women and children, as well as identity within religion, being amongst her central themes.
Working closely with NGOs she tackles sensitive and often controversial subjects. In 2005 Hazel was a key part of the Global campaign & report on ‘Kids Behind Bars’ (as seen on ITN & CNN) where, posing undercover as an aid worker, she was able to capture exclusive images of children illegally imprisoned inside Filipino jails. More recently her essay on the UK’s teenage runaways- ‘Home & Away’ evolved from a piece for the Observer Magazine into a three part news series for Channel FIVE, where Hazel reported and presented the story on camera with her still images being used to illustrate the issue.
Hazel was selected by The British Council to represent the best of British Photojournalism as an arts ambassador to Uzbekistan. This relationship evolved into a more recent commission for her to document the role of women in Qatar and Bahrain as part of a international project called “My Father’s House”, an exhibition that will tour the region for the next three years.
Adam Hinton began his photographic career at the age of 12 when his dad bought him a basic SLR camera. At the age of 15, Adam received compensation from a knife attack (his attacker had a thing against punks) and quickly spent the money on professional cameras and lenses.
Studying photojournalism in the ‘80s enabled him to articulate his feelings, beliefs and values through photography. Covering anti-apartheid and anti-nuclear demonstrations, the miners’ strike and the picket lines at Wapping. Adam’s images portray something of the way we live today, how each action has a reaction, that nothing is without cause or response.
Adam Hinton writes: I believe in the good of people. Wherever I have travelled the people have been welcoming and open. Even in the most dire situations, when almost everything seems negative, I find myself photographing the positives. When I stayed with a family in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro I found that in spite of the level of violence surrounding people living there, it was outweighed by the community’s cohesion. They had, without any external help, organised football and ballet classes for the children and adults, art clubs, after-school care and had built their own library. Families supported each other and the community had a strong sense of social solidarity. This is what I wanted to photograph, not the violence and danger. When I first started taking pictures I found that the social documentary style of B&W suited my work brilliantly (things were more black & white to me then). However, as time has gone by, I have moved away from the more traditional image to something I think is more fluid and spontaneous.
As always we’ll raffle prints from the photographers showing their work to help fund Photo-Forum. The raffle pays for food in the pub after the show (so please come along to share a plate and a glass!) with donations to good causes when there’s any left over. The raffle after the Tim Hetherington show last month raised £200 for Tim’s favoured charity, the Milton Margai School for the Blind in Sierra Leone. Our thanks to you all for your generosity!
The Photo-Forum raffle is the cheapest ever way to own a print from one of today’s leading photographers, please support it and you could win some great work for just a few pounds.
Fire regulations limit us to 100 people in Jacobs’ Pro Lounge. We rarely hit this limit but if you can come a few minutes early there’s less chance of being bounced if the evening proves more popular than usual.
Fire regulations limit us to 100 people in Jacobs’ Pro Lounge. We rarely hit this limit but if you can come a few minutes early there’s less chance of being bounced if the evening proves more popular than usual.
We’d like to apologise for the late notice of the next Photo-Forum. We were keen to put on a show of Tim Hetherington’s work and it’s taken longer than we’d hoped to organise.
Our first speaker is still to be confirmed but we’re pleased to be able to announce that the 9th June Photo-Forum will have David Arnott, a multimedia editor at msnbc.com, presenting photographs by Tim. David writes that he was privileged to be a friend of Tim Hetherington for the last ten years, having worked with him as the editor at Panos Pictures for most of that time. He will present samples of Tim’s outstanding work and talk about his career.
As always we’ll raffle prints from the photographers showing their work to help fund Photo-Forum. We’ll also have a copy of Tim’s book to raffle. The raffle pays for food in the pub after the show (so please come along to share a plate and a glass!) with donations to good causes when there’s any left over. The Photo-Forum raffle is the cheapest ever way to own a print from one of today’s leading photographers, please support it and you could win some great work for just a few pounds.
And two dates for your diary:
Following on from his dslr-on-assignment training DVD Dan Chung is giving an exclusive small group workshop aimed at photographers and videographers who want to improve the way they shoot real world events.
Dan has 20 years experience as a news photographer and has been shooting video for the past five. If you shoot news, features, documentary, events, parties or just enjoy walking around filming the world pass by then this workshop is for you.
The workshop will be £150 for the day (10am-5.30pm) and will take place on Wednesday 8th June in the Jacobs Pro lounge, 74 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1EU. To book a place please contact Henrietta or Donal on 0207 436 6996.
PHNAT have produced a pamphlet that celebrates the history of the I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! campaign. Its launch party will be at the AoP Gallery at 7pm on the 14th June with free refreshments kindly sponsored by ING Media. All welcome.