GARETH WATKINS
be inspired
ARTIST'S STATEMENT //
I am a Franco-British photographer currently living near Reims in France. I started out photography back in the early 80’s after reading French literature at University. In my early days, I mostly tried to capture street type pictures, in London, where I was living at the time. I was hugely influenced by some of the top documentary photographers at the time such as Don McCullin, W. Eugene Smith, Elliot Erwitt, Bruce Davidson, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and spent my time wandering the streets looking for pictures. I quickly realised if I was to work in photography, I would have to move into more general photojournalism. Thus, from the mid 1980’s, I started working for a number of newspapers and agencies in London, before joining Reuters News Agency as a staff photographer in Paris in 1987. Here I covered many local and international stories for over 15 years. Since leaving Reuters, I have started to shoot my own long-term projects, documenting the region in France where I live in black and white.