nottingham — Blog — laura ward

I’ve come to look forward to my annual year in review. I’m not much of a blogger but the odd scraps I write up here are getting a bit better. My website has had a little face-lift too with the addition of a ‘places’ section and a general tidy up.

Last year I wrote that I’d be scaling things back in 2018 which is funny now that I think about it. I’ve packed in more this year than I ever have before. I knew I had to focus on other things, but the universe didn’t really agree with those plans.

Some of the things I’ve been up to, in no particular order…

I exhibited six times. Four times with Shutter Hub (The Shutter Hub Open at 5&33 in Amsterdam and Truman Brewey in London, Because We Can at Festival Pil’ours in France and Girl Town Tel Aviv, at Alfred Gallery in Tel Aviv), a co-headline exhibition called Dino Island and The Lake with Nik Strangelove and at the British Museum Staff Art Show. I was also featured at FIX Photo Festival at Menier Gallery
I moved house and couldn’t stop photographing it
The super hard-working power house Karen Harvey of Shutter Hub asked me to curate an exhibition called Out of the Ordinary which is on until the end of January
I was 2nd in the judges vote for Women of the Year at FIX Photo Festival
I went to Italy to do a little photography work, and onto Zurich after that to photograph a party
Lomography gave me a Diana 120 to test
I pitched an idea to a magazine, they said yes, and it’ll be published in February 2019.
I’ve just finished working on something with Stylus Boy
I was fortunate to be on the long list of nomations for the Hundred Heroines

One of the non-photography projects I’ve worked on this year has been a pre-requisite for getting to the next stage of something really huge. I’ve gone back chronologically and written, in great detail, about every significant moment in my life and how it made me feel. Doing this kind of work would feel really self-indulgent if not for the fact that someone, in a very professional capacity, needed me to do it. This coincided with winning a place on a cross-boundary leadership programme. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I can assure you that I didn’t think it would be mine either. Both of these non-photography related things have been really magical in ways that I hadn’t expected. 2017 closed a few doors for me, but this year they swung back open again.

There are a couple of things in my notebook for 2019. Let’s see what happens.

These photographs are some of my favourites taken with Olympus Pen EE2, Canon AE-1 and Diana 120. Go here for 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009.