Review:
"A complex intellectual quest with sumptuous photographs" -- Brian Hinton, Julia Margaret Cameron Trust, September 21 2001
"A fascinating project...the results are startling..." -- Jenni Murray, Woman’s Hour, Radio 4, February 12 2002
"Bird’s mode of reading pictures is not rooted in their literal power but in a reality that is concealed or lost, a history that is unwritten..." -- Russell Roberts, Portfolio: catalogue of contemporary photography in Britain Issue No.35, May 2002
"The original photographs are stunning, and the remakes just as beautiful...this is a wonderful book..." -- Helen Murphy, British Journal of Photography, March 27 2002
From the Author:
"The themes of photography and hidden history, portraiture and genealogy are very important to me as an artist and writer. Tracing Echoes investigates these in a very particular way, initially inspired by Julia Margaret Cameron’s photograph of a woman leaning on a gate, taken around 1865-1870. ‘The Passion Flower at the Gate’ is an extraordinary study of longing. But I was also drawn to the picture by the woman’s remarkable resemblance to my own sister. Although well known for photographing famous Victorians of the day, such as Lord Tennyson, at her home on the Isle of Wight, Cameron’s allegorical portraits regularly featured her domestic servants, women and girls from the local area. I grew up in the same area and my sister still lives on the island. The power of Cameron’s portraits, and the autobiographical connections raised some provocative questions – what happened to these sitters? How could I trace the sitters’ descendants? Would it be possible to photograph them in a house where their great grandmother had once worked? These were the questions that motivated Tracing Echoes, which for me looks at a famous body of work in a new way." Nicky Bird
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