Don't Fence Me In provides an entire career retrospective, made with the enthusiastic cooperation of Fay Godwin, filming from 2001 until 2005, which turned out to be the last five years of her life. She graduated from taking family snaps to documenting Camden social services, followed by a remarkable sequence of literary portraits, before moving on to landscape photography for a series of walkers' books which evolved into photographic collaborations with major writers, notably Ted Hughes. In 1985 she published Land, a substantial volume which provided a conspectus of British landscape, followed in turn by the polemical Our Forbidden Land, 1990, made when she was elected President of the Ramblers Association and documenting much that is wrong with the way the landscape is managed. Godwin was appointed Photographer in Residence at Bradford's National Media Museum and wanted to work in colour for the first time, documenting the city's dazzling multicultural landscape. Illness caused her to move from the macro to the micro, and she became increasingly obsessed with details of gardens and plants close to home, often seen through glass, gauze and netting. Whilst for much of Godwin's career she used a black and white chemical darkroom, latterly she eagerly embraced digital colour technology with the same enthusiasm and eye for detail. Godwin herself recounts her life and the film is structured through her appearance on Desert Island Discs and around three major retrospective shows of her work, first at London’s Barbican Centre, then the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia and finally at Scottish National Portrait Gallery Edinburgh. 75 mins 4:3 aspect ratio
ADDITIONAL FILM Talking About Fay Godwin
Fifteen of Fay Godwin’s friends, colleagues, associates and family talk about her life and work: Geraldine Alexander (Fay’s assistant); Peter Cattrell (Photographer); Margaret Drabble (Novelist); Colin Ford (Founding Head, National Media Museum); Ken Garland (Graphic Designer & Photographer); Nick Godwin (son); Paul Hill (Photographer & Teacher); Richard Ingrams (Writer); Ian Jeffrey (Writer & Historian); Peter Melchett (Environmental Campaigner & Organic Farmer); Brett Rogers (Director, The Photographers’ Gallery); Tony Stokes (Gallery Owner); Maggie Taylor (Friend & Colleague); Roger Taylor (Photographic Historian) and Shirley Toulson (Writer). 60 mins 16:9 aspect ratio
ADDITIONAL FILM Optics & Chemistry
Fay Godwin’s technical explorations and methods and their impact on her work, from Agfa Rapid papers to the Zone System, are discussed and analysed. 27 mins 16:9 aspect ratio Filmed and Directed by Charles Mapleston Edited by Libby Horner & Charles Mapleston
Don’t Fence Me In
Fay Godwin’s Photographic Journey
Production Company: Malachite Ltd. www.malachite.co.uk 01790 763538
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