Eleonor Beale - ‘A Leaf in the Daisy Field’
Eleanor Beale is a fine art documentary photographer living in Bristol, whose work focuses on unique individuals and their stories. Eleanor uses her camera as a therapeutic tool, working collaboratively to give a voice to others.
“For my work the processes behind the images are often more important than the photographic outcome, I want my subjects to gain catharsis from my work, the conversation and therapeutic processes that happen during shooting”.
Eleanor’s current project, ‘A Leaf in the Daisy Field’ charts the growth of the unique relationship she shares with her sister through the photographic therapy they collaborate in together.
“Myself and my little sister Daisy didn’t have a very strong relationship growing up, it wasn’t until our teenage years where I began to explore her Autism using photography that we finally began to understand each other as people. Recently I have been re-visiting this body of work, aiming to explore the idea of phototherapy between us as siblings, while also shining a light on Daisy’s relationships with other members of our family.
A lot of the ideas behind the images stem from conversations between Daisy and myself, we recall moments of our childhood and in particular aspects of life she has had to overcome.
I love to use my images as a milestone for her, in life we rarely get the chance to step back and reflect on our personal growth. Therefore, we used performance style portraits to illustrate past obsessive behaviours she has had throughout life allowing for reflection and realisation of how far she has grown as a young woman.
I love the idea that the audience can get a sense of the relationship between Daisy and myself through my images, even when I do not appear in the photographs, I think there is an obvious trust and bond between the subject and photographer.
For me the most important outcome of this work is not the images, it’s the need for Daisy to be proud of the art we have created together and proud of her differences.Therefore, every part of our process is collaborative, we make every decision together because this is her story and our relationship.”