Clare Hewitt, a photographer with a thoughtful understanding of people

Clare Hewitt is a London based photographer whose pathway into photography wasn’t quite a natural one. After studying a law degree Clare went on to study Commercial Photography at Bournemouth finding that “both subjects relate to a complex interest in human beings, their habits, behaviours and interests”.

An understanding of people is a skill Clare has acquired greatly. One of her personal projects, Eugenie documents her experience spending time with Eugenie who “unexpectedly suffered from a stroke in her forties, which left her severely visually impaired and stole large parts of her memory.” The pair were introduced through Haringey Phoenix Group, the North London based charity providing aid for the blind and partially sighted. “I started to visit her once a week,” Clare’s artist’s statement explains, “and carried on for three and a half years, watching her continuously transition into a different way of the same life.”

The photographer met Eugenie ten years after her stroke, at a time where she was still unsure of her age and surroundings. Clare’s depiction of Eugenie’s state of mind is an honest visualisation, each shot is thoughtfully crafted, providing an authentic insight into how the world appears to Clare’s subject. Her use of focus throughout the series is so relative to the subject. This is a quality many would view as a mistake but Clare has transformed into an advantageous aptitude in her work. The growing friendship of Eugenie and Clare is an additional theme that elevates the work personally for the audience. Even Clare’s description of their experience together describes a series so much more than a photography project.

“Eugenie became a beautiful subject, my friend, and a vessel, who allowed me to produce a series of emotional observations of her and of myself without a sense of narrative or linearity. Rather, I spent my time immersed in repetition, drifting in circles, whilst trying to move on, as I watched her do the same. The work is a truth, whether it is Eugenie’s, mine, or a blur of both.”