Major Projects
Us
1985 - 1987
Us is a series of family portraits: my two children, my husband and one self-portrait. These pictures are a record of particular personal relationships.
As a woman, the traditional keeper of family history, I made these pictures in black and white to defamiliarise the now ubiquitous colour snap family picture form.
Woman to Woman
1990
In this body of work I set out to define and separate the various strands that make up my sense of my own femininity. How does sexuality manifest itself in me and what is the difference between what I feel and the ubiquitous stereotypical mass cultural images that surround me? How conditioned are my responses It consists of 22 colour triptychs.
Apple of My Eye
1991
A body of work using the relationship of mother and daughter to discuss and question the different ways our culture pictures women’s breasts and compares them to my autobiographical emotive contexts and perceptions.
How do you explain the differences between our deep personal feelings and society’s illustrations to an adolescent daughter?
Entering the Masquerade
1992
A documentary project exploring the importance of the time between 11 and 14 years of age within the development of a woman. Centred on girls at home, school and their fantasies I worked with with girls in four UK schools in Bath and Yorkshire. The project became a book and exhibition.
Citybus
1993
The project, made over about a year’s visits to Southampton opened up new horizons for me. It was much more like street photography than portraiture.
When I was photographing I was definitely in people’s faces, and most people were surprised, at me and at the event
Old Enough to Know Better
1994
A CD-ROM presentation project exploring a missing part of our culture - pictures and views of older women, talking about the men in their lives; their fathers, their brothers, their lovers, their husbands and their sons.
The presentation focused on their emotions and feelings about gender and sexuality and revealed hidden narratives of women.
Daisy
1980 - 2010
This is a large collection of pictures I made with my daughter, Daisy over many years. I became fascinated with photographing her as I emerged as a photographic artist. She and I did it together and it was something I greatly enjoyed.
It did not start as a formal project, but evolved over the years until I suddenly realised how many pictures I’d made of her.
Fashion Stories
2001 - 2004
Four fashion stories derived from my wish to create fantasies. Coming from a colour documentary background, most of my work is about women.
I wanted to experiment with combining fashion with my documentary photography, and was curious about inventing environments in which I could place women of my choosing and dress them to be to be characters, letting them interact.
100 Leading Ladies
2012 - 2014
During 2012-2014, I endeavoured to photograph 100 of Britain’s most respected women over the age of 55; from academics to entrepreneurs, fashion designers to composers.
The Leading Ladies all share one thing in common: they are leading figures in their fields and have defied gender stereotypes.
Stay At Home Dads
2014 - ongoing
Having children is not a choice that women make alone. However, childcare is commonly framed as a women’s issue. This kind of thinking puts all responsibility for the challenges of childrearing onto mothers. Rather, parenting is a joint life decision and both parents need to find their way together. The choices of roles are best shared within each family or the unit cannot be as strong as it needs to be to survive.