Photographers

John Angerson

John's work explores the different languages of documentary photography. His images are concerned with changing cultural landscapes and address definitions of community - focusing on how specific communities form, shift and develop. His critically acclaimed personal work has been exhibited at major art institutions and he has worked across the world on photographic commissions for a variety of international publications.
Work in progress: English Journey.

Cardiff Cobras versus Bristol Bullocks during an American football match at the sports ground of the British Aerospace welfare association. British aerospace built the supersonic plane Concorde that was in service from 1976 and continued for 27 years. Concorde’s ‘final retirement’ flight landed at Bristol Filton Airport.

Since its publication 75 years ago, 'English Journey' by JB Priestley has become a benchmark for writers, social historians and photographers. George Orwell's 'The Road to Wigan Pier' and much of the work of photographer Bill Brandt bear its influence; it was even mooted that it played a part in the policy-making decisions of the Labour Government in 1945.

This contemporary photographic journey embraces the spirit of Priestley's ‘ English Journey’, by using the subtitle of the book: ‘Being a rambling but truthful account of what one man saw and heard and felt and thought during a journey through England.’

"As my journey has taken shape, another global economic downturn similar to that of the 1930s has taken hold. 'Americanisation' and homogenisation seem to penetrate almost every town and city. The England I discovered is manufacturing less and has become highly reliant on technology. Celebrity culture and its media stronghold is fast becoming a national obsession. The perceived threat of global terrorism means new laws have been created curtailing the freedom to photograph in public places and PR departments are increasingly stringent as to how their organisations are portrayed.

However, the open-hearted spirit of the people I have encountered while wandering across England has made me believe, as JB Priestley did, that we work as individuals towards a common goal of cooperation never forgetting that we are all dependent on one another."


Tamany Baker



Tamany Baker is an artist who uses photography to examine our inner worlds and has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Teaching photography at the UWE and Plymouth Universities she also holds an MA in Documentary Photography. She has recently published her first monograph Transient Beauty and the Living with Wolfie series will be published later this year by Dewi Lewis. In 2009 she won the Conceptual and Constructed professional Fine Art category in the Sony World Photography Awards.

Living with Wolfie

The series Living with Wolfie (2008) documents my response to the 'presents' that Wolfie, my beloved cat, brings into the home. At first, I experienced some kind of horror: these dead creatures waiting for me in different parts of my house. Then I looked at Wolfie and tried to understand the instincts which brought them there. It reminded me of the difficulty I have in understanding the behaviours of the opposite sex or of a different tribe. At the time, my ex-partner had been unfaithful and I saw some parallels in coming to terms with the difficult habits of the 'other', whilst also accepting their difference.

Untitled from the series, Living with Wolfie

"The ceremonial aspect of these photographs is similar to the Victorian practice of making a shrine from photographs of deceased loved ones, using flowers and locks of hair to preserve the memory of the living. With these images, I am instead making a photograph of a shrine, engaging with the changing patterns of nature to bring myself closer to the memory of death and loss. The ritualised photograph becomes my way of coming to terms with the traces of violence. It may also be a way of acknowledging certain destructive behaviours within myself (my own alien 'other'), as I become Wolfie's accomplice in playing with the dead animals."

Gina Lundy


Gina Lundy studied Documentary Photography at Newport School of Art, Media and Design, gaining a Masters in Fine Art in 2009. Starting work in the commercial sector as an assistant to advertising photographers, Gina’s work later became interested in the identity of people and place as she worked on long term projects with grass root organisations within the community.

Gina is currently a freelance photographer and educational co-ordinator at the Knowle West Media Centre, where she runs weekly photography workshops and works as a project facilitator. She is has been nominated as an MAstar by Axis contemporary art this year.

Academy

Academy documents the transition of Withywood Community School in south Bristol, as it makes the change from the old comprehensive blocks to the new academy school. The portraits of the students and their changing surroundings subtly note the shifting identity of the educational landscape in this nationwide pattern of regeneration.

untitled, 2008

“My photographic practice is driven by a desire to engage with people and the issues that have a real effect on their everyday lives. Having a camera gives me a licence to explore and investigate. I want to make sense of a situation, laying out the information and creating a visual order, finding the patterns so as to question the intentions behind them.

The surfaces of things, of people and of places, attract and engage my attention. I feel a need to peel back the surface layers; not so much those of an individual life but that of the history of a place and those who inhabit it. What a place can represent – its past and present incarnations, and how the individual locates himself within that space.

That space can be tangible as with the Academy project; the transition of a school community from one environment to another, the changing bodies of adolescent students, or the space could be psychological.

I am interested in creating work that engages with the identity of communities during a period of change, locating the work in its cultural, historical and social context. I would like to create work that explores the dynamics within the relationships between government policy, private developer, sponsorship (in the case of education and sport) and the local community.

The desires of different generations to re-build, transform or start anew, is cyclical in nature. I would like to create work that responds to the history of a community/place and locates individuals within it, noting the subtle repetitions in aspiration in relation to current patterns of urban regeneration.”

Rebecca Harley

Rebecca's work combines formal portraiture with personal stories, often exploring identities and how they relate to the world around us.

A graduate in Fine Art in Context from University of the West of England, Rebecca went on to photograph for a local newspaper in Bristol before joining the national news agency South West News Service. Rebecca completed her MA Documentary and Photojournalism at the London College of Communication in 2009.

I dreamt last night I was writing down my dreams and I kept writing

and writing and then I woke up. I wanted to write down my dreams when

I woke up but I didn't, it was a really weird cycle.

When I close my eyes explores the hopes and desires of people moving through the city. Lost in our own environment and the pressures of the everyday, we are often rushing from a to b without much time to reflect.

What happens when we take a moment to close our eyes, shut out the world and think about our dreams?

Through these short encounters I caught a glimpse into thoughts we all share.