Jill Cole

Like Ed Swinden, Jill Cole was not originally a Photographer. She initially worked in the fairtrade industry as an agricultural economist and said that she now has a 'second life as a photographer' and considers herself to be an emerging artist who is still learning.
The images above are from a series called 'Birds'. When you first see these images i think that they seem negative, but once Jill explained the story behind them it gives them a completely new meaning. She photographed birds that were caught in a 'mist net', the birds were later removed by trained Ringers who took them inside to record data about them and but bracelets on each bird so that they can be identified. Once I understood the logic behind these images i stopped seeing them in a negative way and they suddenly seemed quite positive. The pictures of the birds caught in the next look as if they are being injured when infact they are not being harmed at all.
Jill talked about this project when she came to college as a guest lecturer at the start of our project on The National Forest, as she was doing a residency there and was heavily involved in the project.

Another project of Jill's that interested me was 'Guns', which was done back in 2007.  She produced a series of images to show how guns effect everyday life in North Yorkshire. She described this series of images as a slow documentary project and said that the images tell a much bigger story when they are supported by text.
I think that these images are really interesting as they address a very serious issue. She has not directly staged negative scenes to photograph, sometimes she has just taken a picture of words or of children playing with toys, yet they still seem negative to the viewer.
I thought that Jill Cole was very interesting and had some great work, I like that all of her projects seem to start off small and seem to develop slowly over time in to something much bigger as she learns more about the subject.