REVIEW: MARTHA BY SIAN DAVEY
“‘Why don’t you take pictures of me any more?’ This is what Martha said to me in response to my camera being focused so often on her sister Alice. It took me by surprise. I wasn’t aware that she would care, but clearly she did.”
Over three years, Sian Davey photographed her step-daughter Martha. The project began when Martha was 16, ‘a time when a child is on the cusp of being and becoming a woman’. Capturing Martha as a daughter and sister, Sian also captures Martha and her friends on their nights out and lazy afternoons.
Martha’s teenage years feel carefully preserved between the front and back cover of the photobook. Time passes peacefully through the pages. Images are hazy and sun lit, often set against lakes or fields. Sian catches all the movement, life, and emotion surrounding her daughter. It not hidden deep within the photos, and doesn’t need to be searched for – life springs out the images and celebrates itself.
Part of what is beautiful about this collection is the trust and respect between Sian and Martha. That Martha was able to let her mother into her private life – at a time when most young women want to keep their mothers out. Sian is able to look upon her daughter objectively, and Martha is able to present herself without self-consciousness or masquerade.
Not only is this work about Martha, but about Sian herself. ‘I am always there as the photographer, as her step-mother, as mentor and friend, but where I am and where I place myself is harder to place as she grows and moves further away from her childhood.’
Martha the photobook is available in our independent gallery shop for £40.
Words: Carla Owens
Images: © Siân Davey
http://www.siandavey.com/