Australian & UK Based Photographer Patricia Niven On Horses & Golden Oldies

The name Patricia Niven may look familiar to you, because a few months ago the Australian photographer, who is now based in London, photographed young English artist Inge Jacobsen for GlobalGrind.

Jacobson, you’ll recall, is the photographer who adds stitches to her Vogue magazine collection, layering a sense of permanence and uniqueness to a mass produced object.

EXCLUSIVE: Artist Inge Jacobsen’s Stitch In Time Saves Vogue!

Niven is a photographer’s photographer whose technical skills and eye for detail is unmatched. Her client list is extensive and include the Evening Standard, NME, NYLON, Spitalfields, Oyster, Grazia, Arise, Virgin Music, Oakley, The Victoria & Albert Museum, Channel 4 and Ninja Tune, to list a few.  

B-boys, models, grannies & horses are just some of the subjects who have sat for her.

We spoke to Niven while the London riots were happening a few weeks ago. Here’s what she told us about her new projects.

GlobalGrind: You sent out an email a couple of weeks ago in which you said you are going to go and organize yourself. What happened?

Patricia Niven: I am trying! I think I have just been trying to do photography and something else for too long and I think it is time to do one thing and commit to myself in a way and commit to my own work and see what I can create with that. It is pretty scary, because that means when there is no paid work, there is no paid work. I just feel like it is time to stop spreading myself so thinly because I have always done photography and something. I am either producing for other photographers or being an agent. Photography is my true love.

[pagebreak]

How long have you been a photographer? 

It was June of 1998 when we met. In Australia I went to school and I did two years out of a three-year uni-course and then I left to go and work in a photography studio, because I felt the practical side of it made more sense to me than the theoretical side. But I started taking pictures when I was five; my dad taught me. I started working in the darkroom when I was about 10 because my father got sick of processing my films and printing my pictures. He was like if you are going to keep doing this you are going to need to learn how to do it, which is great! That was such an amazing skill to learn. Then all through high school I always had a camera with me.

How did you end up in the U.K.?

My Dad is English and my Mom is African with an English passport, so since I was about 12 I just thought that I would end up in London. I don’t know, no real specific kind of direction, it was more of a feeling that this was the place for me and I have been here for 14 years now. 

You’ve done  portraits, fashion and now you are working on still-life. You recently did a series of essays on police horses. What was that like working with those animals?

It was amazing! They are locals, they live about a three of four minute walk from where I live and they patrol the streets about four times a day. So I wanted to know where they live and this fantastic blog called Spitalfields Life, who I have been doing some images for, they got access for me and then wrote a really lovely piece about it. It is amazing because you are in the middle of the finance district and you walk through the doors and you are in the stables and it smells like you are in the farm, but you are in the middle of the city.

I have always loved horses, I used to ride when I was younger. It was just really nice being around them. The police people do interest me and particularly with what is going on here at the moment I can currently see what kind of terrible job they have really got, but I was more interested in photographing the day in the life of the police horses and what they do, but apparently every weekend they’ve got like 10 horses and each weekend, they swap. They swap five that are in the country to be in the city. It is nice seeing different aspects of life that you may not get access to and I guess that is what a camera is always great for. 

[pagebreak]

You touched a little bit on the riots that are happening right now. Have you photographed anything?

No I haven’t. Some of my friends have and I’ve been looking a lot at work that is being created. But I think unless it was in my immediate neighborhood I don’t know if I would go looking for it. 

You have a large body of work. We were just looking at images from your Golden Oldies series.

I just went shopping with one of them this morning! They are so great, all those people they all live within 5 minutes of me. I think as I am becoming a bit older I am growing a bit kinder or a bit less self-obsessed. I am not sure exactly what it is, but there are just so many elderly people who are just mobile and active and engaged with the world. It is a really inspiring way to see how to become as you are older, rather than resentful and shut off from the world. 

[pagebreak]

Can you talk a little about how you met them and also talk about your series about their lives?

I met them because I live above a gallery which is on our estate and they were doing a two year project celebrating 50 years of our estate. They had a bunch of different artists responding to the gallery in a multitude of ways, so I wanted to do a portraiture response.

We started looking for people who have lived on the estate ideally since it was established in the late ’50s or if not that long, as long as possible. The oldest man we photographed was 95 and a half and was amazing. 

[pagebreak]

What kind of photographers are you looking at? Who do you like right now?

I always liked Nan Goldin. I find her constantly inspiring. I have always liked Nicolas Nixson, especially his project of his wife and her three sisters it is called the Brown Sisters. I really like the passage of time. It is the same thing with Nan Goldin, recording what is really personal to you and once it is collected, see how time has passed and how it affects people around you and yourself. They are the main people I am looking at, but I am looking at dance quite a lot because I have started to take ballet about 12 months ago. I have never taken ballet before but I have always been interested in dance.

What about books? Anything you are looking forward to or thinking about?

I have this self-portrait series that is 14 years old, I started it when I moved here. I think I may leave it until it is a 20-year-old project and see if it something worth doing in that stage or maybe next year, when it is a 15-year project.  I think because I am just researching what is coming next I can maybe think about doing an exhibition, but I am not sure about a book. I will leave the books to my partner.