After a successful career in education Vicky Hodgson embarked on her photography education and career in 2005. In 2008 she received a BA in Fine Art Photography (First Class Honours) from the University of Gloucestershire and in 2010 she graduated (with Merit) from the MA Photographic Studies course at the University of Westminster. She has achieved many acceptances in the Royal Photographic Society’s annual International Print Competition, and in 2008 she was an award winner. Her work has also been exhibited at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, and in 2010 she was selected to exhibit her work Out of Sight at the Hereford Photography Festival. She continues to be a freelance photographer and she is a published author.
Her work Identity Revisited (2007) contains scanned childhood portraits in juxtaposition with contemporary self-portraits. In this work Hodgson revisits the playfulness of her own childhood and questions the relationship between childhood and adulthood. Revealing Martha (2008) highlights a hidden aspect of working women: their role as housewives and homemakers. Her latest work Out of Sight (2010) photographs women over 50 who work in an office and is in response to ageist discrimination of women over the age of 50.
Out of Sight
Out of Sight presents photographs of women over the age of 50 and aims to challenge discriminatory attitudes against women. This work is concerned with two aspects of female discrimination: the relative obscurity of the older woman in visual media, and a patriarchal attitude to women and work that ensures that large numbers of women are assigned low paid work.
In this series, Hodgson chooses to challenge these ageist attitudes by photographing women over the age of 50 who work, out of sight, in an office. In these photographs these women stand confidently in front of their desks, surrounded by the obligatory computer, telephone and office essentials. By photographing these women within the confines of the office and bringing them into prominent view, Hodgson celebrates older womanhood. The women photographed here seek only the recognition, respect and prestige they truly deserve.
Identity Revisited
In Identity Revisited Hodgson revisits the playfulness of her own childhood and questions the relationship between childhood and adulthood. This work exhibits scanned portraits of Hodgson as a young child in the 1950s, in juxtaposition with self-portraits taken in 1997. The portraits of the young Hodgson show the spontaneity of expression and movement displayed by any child of such a young age. In her self-portraits Hodgson stages the playfulness lost in adulthood by re-enacting the facial expressions and body language captured by her childhood photographer. She wears contemporary clothes to remind the viewer of her adult status.
