Sadly he came sans beard so I was a little disappointed. Simon Roberts is a vastly different photographer to Ellen Rogers. He's mainly editorial. Which for those of you who aren't too sure that means he photographs images to accompany stories of interest. It's related to photojournalism but isn't as focused on the news, it's more those quieter stories you get in the supplements that come with the Guardian or The Times at the weekend. He had a successful career working for various newspapers and magazines but his more celebrated work are the three big personal projects that Simon undertook:- Motherland, We English and The Election Project. I'll quickly go over each project to give you an idea of his work.
Motherland was Simon's first big project in which he took himself off to Russia for a year. His plan was to capture what hadn't been seen before of Russia, how the people related to their landscape and how life after communism was. He wanted to photograph the patriotism of the Russians and show the reality of the country as a place of growing optimism rather than of devastating poverty. Here's one of my favourite photographs from the book.
I just adore the tone of this photograph and it also rather randomly features my tutor's name as the name of the ship. Like Ellen, Simon utilises analogue photography for his work and shot this using a lens that gave a "as the eye sees" perspective. He told us that he refrained from angling his camera as he wanted to capture the shot as we would look at it straight on in real life. I think this was a pretty wise move on his part as it makes the shots that touch more relatable to look at.
Inspired by the patriotism seen in Russia, when Simon returned to England he decided to do a similar project in his homeland and created We English. Packing up his family into a motorhome he travelled around the country with his large format camera. Now there's a few things that are quite interesting about this particular project. Supported by The Times, Simon published a photo each week of the area he'd been staying in which allowed for readers to not only follow his journey but to make suggestions to him about what to see in the next place he was due to travel to. This was the beginning of Simon utilising the general public in his work. It also built up an audience for the final product of his travels. He also found a new perspective to shoot by taking his camera on the roof of his motorhome and shooting his chosen scene from there. This I think is a great idea. More often than not photographs are taken from the same level as the subject matter so by rising himself up Simon gave his photographs an entirely new look.
If you didn't know Simon worked on film it'd be so easy to believe this shot had been photoshopped. It's a fantastic capture and shows one of my favourite things about England, just how damn green it can be. Simon spoke about how he wanted to make sure his photographs captured a particular time. In one of his shots he's photographed an elderly couple sat enjoying the view from a hill and included in the shot is the couples' car. Now most photographers would find a way to avoid featuring the car but Simon purposely included it as it dated the photograph. He didn't want his work to appear timeless, he wanted them to be dated so people would could at them and know when they were shot purely from the subjects featured. I love the idea of this.
Now his most noted accomplishment is probably being the chosen photographer for the 2010 general election for the Guardian. With this he created The Election Project. Taking a similar approach to this work as he did We English, Simon boarded his motorhome and having thoroughly research the candidates spent the election weeks capturing each of his chosen candidates. Again he shot from the top of his motorhome giving the scenes a fuller story in the photograph. Much like he utilised the general public for We English, Simon invited people to submit their own photos of the hullabaloo surrounding the election in their area. He wasn't bothered by quality and people submitted photos from all sorts of cameras including camera phones. At the end of the election when it came to putting together the exhibition he included all the submitted photographs from the general public as one big display.
The above photograph captures the moment prior to the Duffygate scandal, you remember the one, when after meeting with local resident Gillian Duffy a baffled Gordon Brown resorted to calling her a bigot. I think it's a brilliant shot as there is just so much going on in it. It really lets you see so much more of the scene of that moment. Which is why I think Simon's idea to shoot above the crowd is a genius idea.
Now I know a few of my classmates found Simon to be a less than interesting speaker but I actually took away a lot from his talk. His advice for doing editorial work was I found particularly inspiring, in that you should work to be the author of your own words rather than the illustrator of someone else's. I'm encouraged to practice my portraiture work as I think working editorials would be a satisfying way to earn money for funding my own personal projects. I've included the links for each of Simon's main projects within this entry and whilst it might not be to everyone's taste I suggest taking a look, especially of Motherland and We English. It's fascinating to see the difference in patriotism in Russia and England.
I know I for one am looking forward to seeing Simon's next project.
Laters,
P x
That picture of Russia is just like something from a post-apocalyptic film. Silent, rusting hulks, that look like they were flash frozen in an instant. Great stuff.
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