Shirley Read

"...when I'm researching I'm still looking back fourteen years and thinking about the line that runs through and joins up my work."

-Simon Norfolk (Read and Simmons 2016)

What is at the CORE?

What are my 'authentic concerns' as a photographer.

These are the questions discussed by Shirley Read in her chapter: Finding and Knowing- Thinking about Ideas in Photographers and Reasearch (Read and Simmons 2016).  

The work may be expressed in various ways but typically there is an underlying concern that drives the images.  This may come from passion or life experience. 

For instance, Simon Norfolk is known for his work featuring landscapes of war.  At his core is "time, the strata of time, photography as archeology and archeology as photography" (Read and Simmons 2016).

While the shyness Georgina McNamara in her youth, contrasted with her bold personality adapted as a compensating teen became the core of her images featuring either concealment or revealing (Read and Simmons 2016).

Fig. 1: McNamara. Bay, Unicorn, and Pile.

  

Finding the core of your photography is a combination of life experience, research and making work.  

Sometimes you may feel your concerns and recognize your core from the on-start.  More likely it reveals itself through chosen projects and images.  Sometimes it's pointed out to you from the observations of others.  But what's in your core often defines what and who you choose to work with, and how you represent them.  

Figure 1. Georgiana MCNAMARA. From: READ, Shirley and Mike SIMMONS. 2016. Photographers and Research. Focal Press.

READ, Shirley and Mike SIMMONS. 2016. Photographers and Research. Focal Press.