I started photography at Harrow School of Art in 1971 and then continued whilst studying Art as part of my teacher training course at St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham.

My early work in the 70s/80s was in black and white, wet process photography with inspirational icons like Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams influencing my ideas. I have always liked doing portraits of people and was so moved by the picture, 'Migrant Mother' by Dorothea Lange, depicting the depression of 1936. This image made a long lasting impression on my photography.

Ansel Adams’ work has influenced me in many different ways. His writing and his images, particularly his wonderful landscapes never fail to inspire. I have had two visits to Yellowstone and other national parks in the USA. The vastness of these landscapes is mind-blowing!

When I moved from London to Exeter in 1979, I joined Exeter Camera Club.

I was commissioned by the Royal School of Ballet to take images of their Devon Workshops for youngsters in 1980s.

In the past I have been assigned to a political party and photographed politicians for national and local political magazines 1990s - 2002s.

I have had documentary photographs published in local newspapers and national in conjunction with developmental educational projects in Africa 2000s.

I have had the pleasure of taking photographs of royalty for a Devon charity and been in the right place and the right time to take pics of Phil Collins and Genesis with permission from Virgin Records 1990s.

Five years ago I help set up a Black and White Monochrome Group (BWM) as a sub group of Exeter Camera Club, which has continued to flourish and culminates in an annual exhibition of prints by its members in Topsham Café. Look out for their exhibition this October 2013.

I have developed my skills in photography and achieved my ARPS qualification, with the RPS Royal Photographic Society in Professional and Applied Photography in 2012. A member of the RPS Digital Imaging Group and Exeter Camera Club Flickr group.

I am also a member of TPG The Portfolio Group in Devon that meets monthly and its focus is prints, projects and critique.

I use full frame cameras from July 2014 - Canon 5D and 6D with lenses ranging from 17mm - 200mm.

I love and admire the work of Steve McCurry for his stunning superb portraits and Joe Cornish for his wonderful landscapes, although he is quite a purist in his approach to photography, his images are magnificent - in fact I've seen images from both these photographers recently 2012/14 in close detail and their images continue to inspire my photography.

In August 2013, I saw the Sebastião Salgado, exhibition - Genesis - at The Natural History Museum, which was breathtakingly good and I came a away with inspiration for my Yellowstone Exhibition, in Topsham Café, February 2014.

Yellowstone is a sensitive environmental area which needs to be preserved for future generations. Similar in a way to Sebastião's thoughts and body of work in his Genesis exhibition. We live on a sensitive planet which is ever changing as technology makes progress throughout the world with generations creating more waste and climate change and natural disasters making drastic changes to our natural world. The needs of the photographer to record and show the masses the beauty of places in the world which are under threat, from many different forces, some natural and others man-made is a current necessity, to remind us all to question the way we live and treat our environment in order to resolve these issues in the world.

We can feed off of other photographers to stimulate our work and learn new skills and methods all the time.

If you like my work I am willing to give talks/lectures about my photography as I have prints, digital images and AVs (audio visual) so please contact me on the contacts page of this website.

Many thanks

Sandra

Sandra Barrett ARPS - January 2016