Yesterday I attended a talk by photographer Laura Pannack at London South Bank University. Pannack’s work centres on social documentary and portraiture, and she has won multiple awards including Portraits Singles in the World Press Photo Awards.
During the talk Pannack explained her time from her final year at Brighton university to where she is today and talked of her experiences on set for personal and editorial work. Her main message seemed to be to shoot what you enjoy and it is evident in many of her photographs that there is a lot of fun and creative thinking involved.
People, including Pannack herself, talk of her luck in landing the work she did straight from university. However, I get the feeling that she put a lot of work in during her time studying and she talked about assisting many photographers for most her time at Brighton.
One of the reasons for the success of Pannack’s work is the high quality of the photographs. The images show well practiced skill and a photographer who doesn’t settle for less than perfect.
I am particularly interested in Laura Pannack’s career because her social documentary projects are related to my own work and project aspirations. One thing Pannack showed in herself was a level of confidence and friendliness needed for working with people in these situations.
From the talk I have taken away a need to put some heavy practice into my techniques and reassurance that I should stick to photographing what I enjoy.
Zoe Macleay 
