Looking back

Edith Maybin
The Tenby Document
"In these photographs Edith Maybin investigates the space between mother and daughter. She takes portraits in a home environment where she and her daughter enact secret stories together whist wearing Marks and Spencer undergarments, a gesture towards Maybin’s own mother and an investigation into female rituals and sentimental inheritance".

"Maybin digitally places her five-year-old daughter’s head on her own body; the photograph resolving the dichotomy of the relationship. In closing the gap between mother and daughter these images,"

"Inspired by Lady Clementina Hawarden’s photographic tableaux of her daughters, Maybin and daughter paradoxically elude the gaze by way of imaginative abstraction into a place, like Vermeer’s women, intangible.

Although not such an obvious comparison with the past Maybin's work forms part of an increasing trend for photographers to look to the past for inspiration. I find her images not only very beautiful but also very unsettling. See many more images at her website


Betsie van der Meer Another brilliant photographer I saw at the NPG, was Betsie van der Meer, her images are more literal but no less complex and beautifully lit and printed visit her website

Emma Critchley and Sophie Lewis

The Fear of Falling

Finally, these photographs are over 8ft high, they are very imposing, standing like those amazing Tudor portraits you see in stately homes across England. At first I was struck by how beautiful and subtle the colours were as well as the traditionally referenced poses. Then when I read this, I looked again and finally realised just how incredible they really are.

"The Fear of Falling is a series of timeless, life-size underwater portraits that invite new ways to consider the profound experience of submergence. Exploring our changing relationship to the present moment whilst immersed, the subject moves away from the ethereal and floaty imagery usually associated with water and offers instead a more grounded and weighted sense of being. With a gentle nod towards the Industrial Revolution and making processes surrounding the period, the portraits pose the question; could the shifts in consciousness whilst immersed be akin to those experienced centuries ago?"

Can you imagine how hard it must be to create such stillness underwater? the only thing that gives a clue to this is the sitters hair and the way the fabric appears to float, but the expressions are so calm, I would be flapping around like a fish out of water if this were me!

The website is a must see as is Emma Critchley's own site