Born 1964 in Brighton Sian Davey has been working as a photographer since 2014 previously a psychotherapist she uses photography to explore the deep connection with her family and others around her.
Martha
Her project Martha focuses on her teenage daughter and her life in a close and intimate way the photos appear relaxed.
Sian Davey describes her work Martha as an exploration to understand the relationship between her and her daughter. “from the onset it was clear this was a collaboration” – Sian Davey Photowork interveiw. Her work with Martha clearly shows an intimate relationship where to viewer feels included as well creating a sense of unity. The Martha project was created over the span of 2 years which Sian Davey describes the change in her daughter growing up and the struggle to gain access to her life outside of home and maintaining a trusting relationship along side understanding delicate boundaries. ‘Matha’ – reflects an aspect of life parents are often shut out of making it feel much more exclusive and precious. Outside of just Martha Davys also had to gain a trust to her friends as they were often present in Marthas life – The project then became a huge social collaboration.
“The process had this quality of me cultivating the skill of oscillating between invisibility and visibility, letting my intuition guide me in judging when it was ok to be there or not.” – Sian Davey Photowork interview
Davey spends so much time getting to know each person and building a relationship to capture the true state of the person not what they want her to see or think about them displaying only the person not her and the work behind it.
Analysis
Davey usually shoots in bright light with a shallow to mid depth of field to focus purely on the subjects she captures and not the background. The colours in the images are always more natural reflecting to real world with little manipulation to the photographs. The compositions to her images always appear random possibly because of the situation of her taking them with little to no planning to capture people in their natural states showing the relaxed environment.
Emotional response
I really enjoy ‘Martha’ as a piece of work it is like looking in through a window into someone’s life you can see the connection she shares with those around her and that is explored throughout the project – you feel as if you are invited into the setting aswell.
The Garden
“Why don’t we fill our back garden with wildflowers and bees, and the people we meet over the garden wall – we’ll invite them in to be photographed by you.” – Davey’s son Luke – blurb of ‘The garden’
‘The Garden’ is a currently ongoing work for Davey taking their abandoned family garden and planting hundreds of wildflower seeds over the course of 2 years to create a shared space with neighbours, family and people they literally met along to way, typical of Davey’s work focusing on the person and them connecting with the camera and her on a deep emotional level. Davey again used this project to connect with her son with it being his idea they worked to clear out the graden and explore wildflowers to further understand biodiversity and make a thriving garden. The latter part of the project then included getting people to be photographed learning of their life stories as Davey often tries to do with her subjects and photographing them in the shared space they had created, Capturing their emotional connection to the camera.
“We collected stories from the people we met over the garden wall, which over time came to feel like intimate, confessional space.” – blurb of ‘The garden’
Analysis
‘The Garden’ uses soft colours and over exposure to create a light environment. She shoots with a shallow depth of field to centre the focus on the subject it creates soft edges to all the flowers as well making it appear more calming and about the feeling instead of the detail. emotionally I think it highlights the natural beauty in the people captured focusing on only them.
As a photographer I find Sian Davey’s work inspiring with her clear talent for getting people to connect with her and the camera I also prefer the more candid photos to posed and her work lends itself well to that.