Fay Weldon Portraits

Fay Weldon

Fay Weldon

I followed a link from the OCA 'We are OCA' February 27th 2011, the Open College of the Arts Blog, to an article of an exhibition called 'Revelations from Back Home' reviewed by Gareth Dent, link here:

http://www.weareoca.com/photography/revelations-from-back-home/  

and onwards to a review of the Fay Weldon exhibition at the National Media Museum in Bradford,  link here:

http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/PlanAVisit/ExploreOurGalleries/GalleryTwoLandRevisited.aspx

I met Fay Weldon once, in the 1990s, when I attended a course in Twickenham on landscape photography.  She showed pictures taken of the British landscapes which depicted how it was being spoiled by the invasion of man into the wild and remote places that still existed at that time. All I can remember is a small, slight blond woman but who was full of energy and passion who wanted to get as many photographers as she could involved with saving the places she loved. I didn't realise at the time that she was also president of the Ramblers Association.

What I also didn't know then was that she had been an eminent portrait photographer and had moved away from that genre in the 1970s.  I followed further links to one on the National Portrait Gallery where there is a section showing 48 of Fay's most notable portraits.

http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?LinkID=mp08162&wPage=0

I was very interested to see how she portrayed the people she photographed as I wasworking on the People & Place module final assignment and, through discussion with my tutor, was taking portraits of local characters where I live in Lyme Regis.  It was interesting to see how, in her published images, she posed her subjects in a very similar way coming in close to feature mainly portraits of the head and shoulders of a person. This went against the advice I have been given by my tutor, who said it was important to produce an image which told a story about the sitter and this story could usually be found in the surroundings that the subject was shown in, ie, their own home. Sometimes a strong full face portrait can show much more character than one where the subject was smaller in the frame. There is a place for both, dependent upon what it is you want to show about the sitter but |I think that a full face or profile picture can be a very strong image.