Why not sit down with a nice cup of tea and a 'naughty' cake and enjoy my website!

angela x

Angela Clarke discovered she was a photographer in 2008, during her Foundation Art year at East Surrey College, where she specialised in 'Photography as a Fine Art'.  During this year she was photographed with her Amsterdam Installation for the college prospectus.  This was an installation of 644 images of mainly street photography, which she exhibited laminated on A5 sheets of paper which were then tied together with string.  During this year she was also responsible for taking most of the photographs for the students portfolios.  She then bought her first D-SLR, and went on to complete a two year HND in Digital Photography in 2010, whilst simultaneously doing Web Design and Photoshop evening classes to NCFE Level 2.  When she had only just discovered she was a photographer, and before she had started her HND, she was already selling some of her macro shots to the heads of the Photography and Fine Art Departments of the Reigate School of Art, Design and Media.

In 2009, she enjoyed opening her house to the public to display her fine art plaster work, fabric wall art and photography as a member of the 'Surrey Artists Open Studios'.

She achieved a BA First Class Honours in Photography in June 2011 at K College in Tonbridge, graduating later that year at Canterbury Cathedral.  During this course her tutors recommended that she pitch her advertising brief to Kodak, who they were sure would see her 10 images for this project as a viable advertising campaign.   She was awarded a 'first' for her design of this website, the original version was designed and built in 1.5 days.  She was put forward by her tutors to single-handedly curate the end of year show for all of the HND and BA students for K College in 2011. 

Angela is very creative, and has an 'arty' take on what she sees, and likes to think outside the box and capture beauty in normality.  Coming from a fashion and design background, she loves how macro photography captures texture, and enjoys shooting street photography - sometimes snapping randomly, without looking where she is pointing the camera.  She also has a love of vintage cars, and has followed several London to Brighton car rallys.  Her favourite portraits are the ones she takes 'unawares', where she captures a more natural snap-shot of the real character of the person she photographs, or even an 'essence' of them, like in the night club page of this website.

In May this year, Angela gave a talk to the Tonbridge Camera Club, challenging them to break the rules. She taught them how to produce conceptual 'arty' shots, instead of technically perfect ones; to not focus on the quality of their camera, but to instead look at the composition of their images; and to re-evaluate images they would normally have discarded. She is looking forward to being called back to judge a very interesting competition that she has challenged them to, and they are looking forward to a solo talk from her in 2012.

To date, Angela has had her work hung in exhibitions in Surrey, Kent and London, some of the photographs taken at these events are shown on the 'exhibitions' page of this website.  She exhibited her Final Major Project (FMP) for her final degree show with her class at the East Gallery in Brick Lane, London in May 2011.  Her FMP was a project about reality, a photographic diary of just over 2 years of internet dating. The images were of the venues where she met her dates, some were as simple as a macro shot of an inanimate object, but each picture captured an 'essence' of the date - it wasn't about showing the guy.  For her first exhibition the 35 images were displayed on luggage labels to represent her journey.  An example of one of these images is the photograph above, which was taken of a cup of tea and a 'naughty' cake, on one of her first dates, in the garden of Fanny's Farm Shop in Merstham, which has been commissioned to hang in a Hospital in Central London.  For this project she was awarded the highest 'first' ever given in the history of K College, achieving 85%.  Her tutors have likened her reportage / social documentary photography to Tracey Emin and Martin Parr, and advised her to approach Martin Parr's Publisher with the original book that was created to compliment her exhibition in London.  Since finishing her BA, Angela has been re-writing her book and sent the nearly completed edition to Dewi Lewis in November 2011.  She is looking forward to hearing from them in the new year.

Angela's first book was called first dates and was an interesting and very humorous account of the emotional roller-coaster of meeting total strangers via internet dating.  It was only created for the purposes of her London Exhibition, and was not available for sale.  Because during this time she was attending full-time Photography Courses, she sometimes met guys before or after photoshoots for college projects, and occasionally had a camera or mobile phone with her on these dates, especially when she was meeting them at beautiful public places. She didn't decide to use her experience of dating for her FMP until she had been dating for over a year and a half, and most of the photos had by then been taken unintentionally, as she was still developing her photographic skills.  A good example of this is the last photo in the arty stuff section of this website, which shows the sculptured bench she sat on to chat to a guy in 2009.  She took this photo nearly 2 years later, when she was walking past it, on another date in 2011.  The photo was taken randomly along Bankside by the Thames, just outside the Shakespeare Theatre.  She took it as a practice shot for a London Street Photography project, without even looking where she was pointing the camera.  As it looks a bit like a wobbly bridge, this is the photograph she selected to use for the front page of her book, because to her it represents her bumpy ride through internet dating.  

Angela wouldn't have considered publishing the second version of this book, unless the guys could remain anonymous.  The second edition has larger photos and more information about where they met and funny things they talked about. The original concept of her FMP about reality was inspired by a quote from Daido Moriyama, a Japanese Photographer.  Angela felt during the process of researching for this project that it was appropriate to use her own 'reality', and although it hasn't been an easy journey, she continues relentlessly in her quest to find a boyfriend!

In August 2011, Angela Clarke was featured on the K College home page, where the college publicly congratulated her on her exemplary achievement for her BA First Class Honours in Photography.  She was also asked by K College to do a radio interview with KMFM to promote the College, this aired in results week in August 2011. 

This website is just a snap-shot of what Angela Clarke is capable of!  

© angela clarke photography