Artistic Photographer Hilary Smallwood, Herefordshire, UK

Blue 6

Purple 2

Yellow 1

Starburst 1

Pinkscape 2

Red 1

Light 1

Green 1

Rainbow World 1

Rainbow World 4

I have been working as a freelance photographer and arts outreach worker for several years. My work in the main consists of:

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Picture Editor and Project Co-Ordinator for the Traveller's Times (National magazine for Gypsies/Travellers).

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Photography workshops for disadvantaged groups.

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Working with the Hereford Photography Festival (on whose management comittee I served for 2 years)

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Photo commissions - for the Rural Media Company and the local council

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Arts outreach (running the CRE8 youth arts outreach project under the new audiences scheme, working for the Ross-On-Wye International Festival, Working on a young Traveller Music project etc.)

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Natural light portraiture for individual clients.

Alongside this 'bread-and-butter' work, I have been developing my own art photography, currently consisting of large semi-abstract highly saturated colourful images based on natural forms and reflected light. These images straddle the boundary between representational and abstract art. As well as being striking images, they have the additional element of presenting the viewer with the conundrum of deciding what they are, of wondering what the original photograph was. They present a new view of known phenomena, lacking, as they frequently do, the points of reference which we recognise in the world around us. There are changes of colour, perspective, dimensions and situation in space, which result in visually satisfying images that leave the viewer wondering "What are they?".
An early influence was Terry Frost; and since producing my photographs, I have become aware of the work of Catherine Yass with whom my works share an intensity of colour and preoccupation with light. Im my case, I am taking as my starting point the natural world, rendering it unfamiliar and yet recognisable, and producing an 'other-worldly' feel.
In my photography, I work with all digital equipment, and enjoy the opportunities that this provides. All my recent work involves close up images of natural forms and reflected light, which I then adapt in Photoshop to produce semi-abstract images which are more like paintings than photographs. We are now more familiar with the photograph as reportage or a vehicle for social comment, but I wished to move away from this and to some extent return to the 'painterly' traditions where photography has its roots. Whilst looking backwards to the academic painting traditions of the 18th and 19th centuries, these images are very much of the 21st century, relying as they do on digital technology. I hope to show that this new technology need not be just used as 'wizardry', but can take its place as a valid arts medium.
The photographs are intended to be enjoyable and to hang on the wall and they have an element of fun, becuase some require a guessing game to decide how they started out - indeed, I had a phone call from a couple who had bought one of my works, asking me to restore marital harmony by telling them what the original photograph was!

Hilary Smallwood's Gallery