A new exhibition at Amber Film & Photography Collective brings together the work of nine photographers who have documented the young people in the UK over a period of 40 years. Rarely seen works by Chris Killip and Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen are shown alongside recent work by Alys Tomlinson, Maryam Wahid, Sadie Catt, Tom Sussex, Christopher Nunn, Paul Alexander Knox and Vanessa Winship. These photographers tenderly capture the awkward, surprising and passionate period of maturation into adulthood.
Among the images in Vanessa Winship’s first retrospective are portraits taken with a view camera, which led her to slow down and engage her subjects rather than be fleetingly invisible.
Vanessa Winship had gotten very good at getting the picture without getting noticed. But unlike street and documentary photographers who strive to be invisible, Ms. Winship was not happy.
Vanessa Winship’s work came to my attention when a friend of mine showed me the copy of Sweet Nothings, a most exquisite little book of portraiture of school children in Eastern Anatolia (Turkey). A little later, Vanessa sent me a copy of the book, and we started talking about her work, so I ended up asking her for an interview.
These two girls touched me, and I can’t say why. The image was made last spring in a school playground in Kars, near the Armenian border in eastern Turkey. I had been based in Istanbul for five years, so knew the country quite well, but I began this piece when I decided to come home. It represents a turning point for me as a photographer.
Clearly I should already have known who Vanessa Winship is. I mean, she won the first World Press Photo award ever given in the arts category; she’s exhibited at Visa pour l’Image, Les Recontres d’Arles, and the Leica Gallery; oh, and did I mention…she makes beautiful, beautiful images.
