Simon Roberts

Simon Roberts stated that a central theme to his talk would be that of 'authorial identity', by which he means a photographer should rightly consider themselves as an author of their own projects, and not as an illustrator for someone else's. He explained this with the example of his own career – where after starting out working for a news agency, he soon found himself losing not only copyright, but also any sense of ownership of his pictures, as they were widely distributed amongst newspapers, without the due creditation. Consequently, Simon found himself taking on less news and magazine work in favour of his own larger projects, projects which he felt he had more control over, could take more time over, and which ultimately felt more purposeful to him: enter Motherland - a project which came about through his personal connection to Russia and his desire to counter the cliché tourist images.

Skegness Beach, Lincolnshire, 12th August 2007 from 'We English'

When Simon was introducing We English, he discussed how he approached the project, knowing that he was following a rich tradition of photographic work with the same principal idea.

"I was very aware that I was stepping out within this lineage of photographers that had gone to look at the British landscape. I was very conscious that what I was doing was nothing new, and so it was important when I made this journey, that I wasn't going to be derivative of what had gone before, that I was actually adding to the dialogue – to the photographic narrative if you like – of photographers looking at their landscape."

This was very encouraging to hear for a student photographer. One of our greatest assets is our originality – supported by a close group of like-minded practitioners, and yet to be fettered by the necessity of making a living – but faith in this can be all too easily lost when looking to the intimidating mass of work that precedes us.

James Willis, Liberal Democrat. Dartford, 4 May 2010 (Dartford constituency). from 'The Election Project'

An ingenious contribution to Simon’s success is the use of viewer participation – he was building the audience for We English whilst still making the project. People were invited to contribute suggestions for locations and events to be photographed, on a blog which was part of the project website. This community built up, and was maintained by Simon as the project progressed. On completion he then had a large and diverse group all prepared and interested in viewing, purchasing, and spreading his work. This method was then continued with his most recent work – The Election Project – where people were invited to take and submit images which reflected their own experience of the election.

Simon's practice is a solid and proven example of the benefits of utilising consumer involvement to establish himself as a rightful and recognisable author. He is one of the foremost explorers into photographic trans-media storytelling, and he's done it all wearing a red-checked shirt.