Members’ Images - David Fletcher LRPS
David Fletcher LRPS 100 Women, 100 Years Looking for documentary projects in 2018, two significant centenaries provided obvious starting points; the end of the First World War, and the first time some women were granted the vote in the UK. Both are huge subjects, of course, and were well explored during the year. I like to find documentary subjects close to home, as this can add a personal edge to the work. It occurred to me that much of the photographic work around women’s suffrage was about well-known people – the leading suffragettes themselves or female MPs, for example – with good reason, of course, as they deserve recognition. In the back of my head was David Hockney’s series, ‘82 portraits and one still life’, of his friends and acquaintances all seated in the same chair in his studio. I liked the concept of a series based on personal knowledge of the subjects, and the idea developed of creating a series of 100 portraits of women to celebrate 100 years of votes for women. It would be impossible to claim that my 100 subjects represented a cross-section of all women, so I decided to take the opposite approach and draw them all from my local community. The project would not be directly about women’s suffrage, but a snapshot of women’s lives 100 years later, in recognition of the suffragettes’ achievement. It would be both a record of a community, and of the women within it. Since this was a documentary project, I wanted more than just the portraits. How about asking each woman to bring with them a significant object – something important to them, which had memories or associations attached to it? Then I could ask them to write about the object they had brought and what it represented. Using the same chair as the setting for all the subjects, I added a small table to display the objects they brought, and a neutral background. My intention was to focus on the women themselves, with all other aspects of the portraits remaining essentially the same. The project became a book containing 100 portraits of women from the small New Forest community where I live. Each subject wrote exactly 100 words about themselves and their chosen object, and their words appear with their portrait. This article contains a small selection of the portraits. It was difficult to decide who to include, however all 100 portraits can be seen on my website at www.davidfletcher.photography. Anyone interested in the book can contact me at david@davidfletcherpho.com.
Brenda One Christmas time, mum, Jonathan and Timothy caught the Tuesday Market bus into Salisbury. Jonathan and Timothy decided they wanted to buy me a Christmas present. It was delightful to watch 8-year-old Jonathan holding 4-year-old Timothy’s hand, trying to hide the presents from me. People in the shop looked on with smiles on their faces. Christmas Day arrived, and they proudly gave me their gifts - from J a china elephant which was pierced so I could hang my earrings on it, from T a lady holding an umbrella with ‘smellies’ inside. Not the best china, but I treasure them. 72
