From an early age, Conor Richardson always had a camera with her. However, her serious interest in photography was sparked as a result of a night class in college. “I must admit, it was a love of the darkroom and seeing those black and white images appear that got me snapping everything,” she says. “Everything from my horse eating peanut butter to my pet ferret, Fagan.”
Richardson recalls that it was never suggested at school that photography could be a career. All the indicators available suggested she should work with animals and science. But that did not stop her adoring images. “I had a love and admiration for photography prior to wanting to take images,” says Richardson.
Richardson lost her father early in life and developed a love of studying photographs. “When you lose a parent before you had the opportunity to get to know them, you learn to study their body language, and soul, through images left behind,” she says.
After two years at the University of Fine Art in Hobart, Richardson found her major, in printmaking. She has now been a professional photographer for three years, and recognition has come her way, with the award of Tasmanian Illustrative Photographer of the Year, in 2013.
In her images, Richardson tries to capture the world around people, their environment and their experiences. She tries to create an image that will speak of who the subject is when they are gone. “I love creatures and humans in their environment. And the workings of the world right down to the small mutualisms between different organisms.”
Now that the cooler months have arrived in Tasmania, Richardson is busy with printmaking, testing and working out how she is going to combine the disciplines of photography and printmaking. She plans to reveal the fruits of this labour later this year.