Photography - Sarah Wenban

Uckfield-based photographer Sarah Wenban takes pictures of children for a living. But they are not the sort of cheesy ‘isn’t that sweet’ images you might imagine. “I tend to work in sepia tones,” says the photographer, who has an exhibition of ‘sideshots’ at Trading Boundaries this month. “I like there to be a timeless quality to the pictures, so they don’t date. I’m very influenced by vintage photographers, like Julia Margaret Cameron, and Imogen Cunningham, as well as more contemporary photographers like Sally Mann.” Mann, of course, courted controversy by taking pictures of her own children naked. While Sarah ‘doesn’t go as far as that’, she admires the work. “I’m very much of the opinion that you should photograph what you know. Since I’ve had my children, family life is very much what I know. Children are very good portrait subjects, as they lack the self-awareness that adults feel. They’re very unselfconscious. And they are very spontaneous.”

The exhibition will not concentrate on children. “Hence the title of the show, ‘Diversity,’” says Sarah. “The sideshots includes a series I call ‘The Gift’. This features the found objects my children have run up to show me. It might be a horrid old stick, or a beautiful orchid, or dragonfly or a starfish. They are all treasures.” Trading Boundaries, which sells exotic furniture from round the world, ‘is very conducive to my type of pictures,’ Sarah believes. If you can’t make it out to the shop, near Sheffield Park, she will also be exhibiting in Middle Farm in June. AL