Purple Poppy Photograph

Documentary photographer and photographic artist based in England, UK. Since 2007 when I met women in Sierra Leone displaced by a decade of civil war, I have devoted my photographic practice to recording the personal narratives of women of war, conflict and genocide. Along the way I photographed the red common cornflower poppy (Papaver rhoeas) as a personal response to forgotten women of war. This body of work is inspired by two forgotten women of war: American volunteer war worker Moïna Belle Michael who, in November 1918, conceived the red poppy of the In Flanders Fields war poem as a symbol of remembrance; and French war worker Madame Anna Guérin who introduced the poppy remembrance symbol to Britain in 1921. Here is a small selection of works from my touring exhibition Poppies: Women, War, Peace which combines a portrait series of women whose lives have been affected by war with a botanical series of the red poppy in its natural environment.