The Derek Evans Memorial Lecture

Featuring renowned photographer and digital storyteller Daniel Meadows, who will talk about his work as both photographer and digital storyteller, and Alex Thimm who will talk about the work of Derek Evans and recognise the significance of this major archive. A Catcher Media collaboration with Hereford College of Arts.

Daniel Meadows

‘The photographer who championed the great ordinary’

Daniel became a photographer after visiting the Bill Brandt retrospective at London’s Hayward Gallery in the summer of 1970. “I was amazed how he used his camera as a passport to slip between the social classes,” says Meadows. “After ten years cooped up in miserable boarding schools I was fizzing with curiosity about the wider world and desperate to adventure beyond the narrow world of my upbringing. Brandt showed the way.”Daniel Meadows has spent a lifetime recording British society, challenging the status quo by working in a collaborative way to capture extraordinary aspects of ordinary life through pictures, audio recordings and short movies.

With Peter Fraser, Brian Griffin, Charlie Meecham and Martin Parr, Daniel Meadows studied at Manchester Polytechnic (1970-73). In 1973-74 Meadows undertook a famous journey around England in the Free Photographic Omnibus. Travelling 10,000 miles he made 958 portraits from the converted double-decker which was home, gallery and darkroom, running free portrait sessions on the streets of 22 different British towns and cities. In the 1990s he revisited this project, photographing again some of the same people for his widely published series National Portraits: Now & Then.

Meadows taught the documentary photography course with David Hurn in Newport (1983-94); also photojournalism (1994-2001) and digital storytelling (2000-2012) at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media & Cultural Studies where he also completed his PhD (2005). His work has been exhibited widely both in the UK and on the continent of Europe. Solo shows include ICA London (1975), The Photographers’ Gallery London (1987), National Media Museum Bradford (2011). Group shows include Serpentine Gallery, London (1973) and Tate Britain (2007). Read more about Daniel in this Guardian article.

Alex Thimm

Alex was born in Germany in 1960 and moved to the UK in 1978. It was around 1984 that he discovered the joys of photography after purchasing his first camera. Since then he has never lost his fascination with the medium. He completed a BA in Photography at Derby University where he met among others, John Blakemore, Jo Spence, Lewis Baltz, John X Berger, Olivier Richon and Lynn Silverman. In 2003 he completed an MA in Documentary Photography at Newport University under the supervision of Paul Seawright, Ian Walker and Ken Grant.

Although his own work has often been concerned with issues of Landscape he admires artists as far ranging as the Bechers, Richard Misrach and Alec Soth. He has been influenced by the work of Raymond Moore and Walker Evans among others. Currently he is Course Leader for BA (Hons) and FdA Photography at Hereford College of Arts.