Laura Allen
Technical Specialist
Photography
For as long as I can remember I have always been curious about the natural world and when I was given a camera, I would capture nature, waiting many hours with an air release to photograph birds feeding in my garden. One shot at a time and hours of patience. When I studied photography, I fell in love with landscape, and many weekends were filled with walks in Northumberland and the peak district. For my MA I rediscovered still life during my research project and the two genres run side by side in my practice. I am a film photographer, and use large format cameras, 5x4 and 8x10 and occasionally 6x9. Using larger cameras is slow (at times cumbersome) and methodical and works for me personally. I can often be found in the darkroom experimenting and continuously learning new things personally and that I love to pass onto students.
For as long as I can remember I have had a fascination with natural history. Early memories as a child bringing dead bees, wasps and beetles to my dad, and in his shed, he would patiently pin them to a small thin wooden board for me to display them on. This series of images was born out of the curiosity of not having explored the cyanotype process to its fullest. I teach and demonstrate it on a regular basis. It wasn't until I began experimenting with various tannins, that I really wanted to make large scale works.
