Introducing the Growing Cast of First Women

The First Women team is a group of talented professionals, from a range of backgrounds, who have been brought together by a passion for the arts. Their skills and expertise combine to create a formidable team, which works tirelessly to support this important venture. We really couldn’t do it without them..

Our leading lady

Anita Corbin is a world renowned photographer, based in Wellington, Somerset. Born in 1958 in South West London, Anita fell in love with photography at an early age; winning her first prize at just age ten.

Anita studied photography at the University of Westminster and the Royal College of Arts, before becoming a regular photojournalist and editorial portraitist for the Sunday Times and Observer magazine, specialising in

human interest stories. Having worked out of Corbin O?Grady Studio in central London during the 80s and 90s, Anita escaped to the countryside with family and business, and is now happily settled in Somerset.

First Women is the project that Anita has waited all her life to create. Her passion was born out of work she began in the early eighties - her Visible Girls portfolio was symbolic of women’s new found freedom to be whoever they wanted to be and has been fired by her years spent working at national newspapers, where the stories she covered so often involved inspiring women. This project is a celebration of 20th and 21st century women, creating a magnificent archive for many generations to come.

A spirited marketeer

Drew Sarah Llewellyn is a talented marketeer, who works to keep the First Women project in the spotlight by providing us with her specialist marketing consultancy from her company, QBallyhoo.

Drew is both a qualified designer and a Chartered Marketer, which gives her a unique understanding of both the creative and strategic aspects of marketing. She combines this rare quality with excellent instincts honed over her two decades of working in marketing and promotions for various industries including IT & online communications, wine & spirits and latterly in Higher Education - where she first started to work with Anita.

Drew now represents a wide rage of clients, overseeing everything from brand designs of small artisan companies to integrated campaigns for the NHS, as well as providing strategic marketing support for businesses operating in Europe and the US. Drew has been working on the First Women Project since 2008, providing invaluable marketing support to Anita and the team - and ensuring that the wider world hears about the venture.

Keeping us on track

Cressida Moger joined us in October 2010 and is the most organised person we know - combining excellent communications skills with an incredible eye for detail. For more than a decade Cress has worked within organisational roles, predominantly as an Assistant and Office Manager, for international companies in London. Her extensive experience in working for large multinational firms makes her an excellent project manager, and allows her to deliver unrivalled organisational skills to her clients; and luckily, to us!

In 2010, Cressida founded Advanced Virtual PA. This innovative service recognises that, with the technological advancements that have allowed collaborative and virtual working, companies can now enjoy the best PA services without the need for full time or office based staff. As our office manager, Cress takes care of everything from database management to admin support. A vital team member who keeps us organised and ensures that the project is on track.

A head for PR - and an eye for business

Jane Adkins is a consummate communications professional, who provides us with hard working media relations programmes. Her PR skills work to keep the First Women project in the press - and to let the world know what we’re doing, and why.

Based in Dorset, and heading up A Head for PR Ltd, Jane is also a trained journalist, having spent over a decade working in the media in London. Jane brings to the team fifteen years of experience working in the PR industry, which has resulted in long-established and beneficial relationships with both the UK and international press.

As founder of A Head for PR, Jane works with a disparate range of clients, including travel and tourism companies, lifestyle, charities and food and drink firms.Jane and her daughter Rhiannon, who handles the videography side of the business, joined the team in June 2009.

Not just a token male

Michael Kay runs a full service business consultancy from where his team provides strategic advice and support to a range of companies across diverse business sectors. Michael specialises in corporate sponsorship, charity fundraising and business development. Over his 20 years in the business, Michael been involved in the development and implementation of some huge projects, including the Reuters Global Golf Challenge and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Prior to forming Michael Kay Associates in 1991, Michael held the position of Sales and Marketing Director at The Challenge Business. In that high profile role, Michael was instrumental in securing major global companies to sponsor the yacht entries in the British Steel Challenge the BT Global Challenge Round The World Yacht Race. In what was a major coup, Michael secured BT as the title sponsor of the race - and it is this level of achievement that we are keen to harness in the year's ahead!

Michael is a vital support to the First Women team, helping us to secure much needed sponsorship to keep the project going. His business advice and consultancy is essential to the initiative, and we love having

Michael on board since he joined us in February 2011.

It may not be the Age of Wisdom but Wisdom of Age will always be with us

This week I am revelling in publicity about a book containing photos that I was commissioned to take by the Somerset Care Group. Several months ago I was asked to take portraits of 20 Somerset Centenarians to appear in a book to mark the 20^th anniversary of Somerset Care. If you don’t have the June issue of Somerset Life to hand and haven’t seen the Western Daily Press or Western Morning News then check out: http://tinyurl.com/6cscvlo to read all about it!

As I photographed these grand old men and women, I was struck by their knowledge and the historical perspectives wrapped up in each individual’s wealth of experience. Nowadays everything is about youth, and you only have to pick up a newspaper, switch on the TV or reach for a glossy magazine to be told how to look younger, have smoother skin, banish those wrinkles. It’s as if we want to erase old age and everything associated with it. The individuals that I photographed for Somerset Centenarians had an inner beauty that lay beneath their lines and wrinkles – and those lines and wrinkles are proof of a lifetime and a fascinating story just waiting to be revealed.

I notice this time and time again as I continue to build on the First Women portfolio of portraits. One of the first portraits I took was of centenarian Edith Kent. She made her way into the history books as the first woman in Britain to earn the same wage as her male colleagues. Being 4ft 11in her diminutive stature meant that she could crawl inside torpedo tubes while working as a welder during the Second World War. Starting on five pounds and six shillings (£5 6s) a week as a skilled female worker, she was soon given a rise to £6 6s. A male manual worker in 1943 would have been on a weekly wage of only £5 8s 6d.

Edith said she was extremely proud of her signal achievement but she was embarrassed at the time.

She said: “I got the job because my brothers worked at the dockyard and they thought I would be good at it. I was the first woman to work as a welder there. It made me a bit uncomfortable that I was the first woman to earn the same as the men — and in some cases I was earning more than them. All the men I worked with were marvellous and they didn't seem to mind me earning the same.”

Edith achieved parity of pay at the Devonport dockyard in Plymouth and doesn’t feature in the book which will be launched at next week’s Bath and West Show. The 20 centenarians featured in the book are not all Somerset born and bred, but by reason of their varying circumstances have all become residents of the county as they celebrate their centuries. Their stories are vastly different, from the Tiller Girl to the South African Lady to the men and women who have always lived here. Each of their stories contains love and loss, and includes their own personal experiences of the momentous events that shaped the 20th century. 

The stories and my portraits show how Somerset Care offers older people varying levels of independence whether it is in their own home - as in Mabel Stuckey's case where she is looked after by carers, or Bessie Barnes who stands proudly in the front room of her sheltered housing in front of her centenary birthday cards or Ivy Springham who lives in one of Somerset Care's nursing homes.

The book, priced at £16.99 and available through normal booksellers or at £14.99 if purchased direct from Somerset Care, was written by Kalina Newman, with photographs from the subjects’ own archives and contemporary portraits by myself, Anita Corbin. It is published by Wellington-based Halsgrove Publishing.     

30 years on …..

As our TV screens, our iPhones and our computer screens bombard us with images of a 21^st century Royal Wedding, I am transported back down memory lane to my own recollections of another royal wedding and the resultant photographs taken by me when I was the youngest photographer on the Sunday Times press core covering the wedding of Charles and Diana for the paper.

Ironically I have waited 30 years before seeing all the images that I captured on that day because at the time they were whisked away at great speed by motorcycle courier before surfacing four days later in a Sunday Times magazine special. Today’s press photographers will be beaming their images to satellites from their various positions on route , possibly seeing the printed versions within just 20 minutes of shooting time.

Recently when I visited the Sunday Times Archive I was able to view my 35mm colour transparency film images on a light box after 30 years of wondering what they had 'come out like'.  Leaning over the light box, I was transported right back to the early eighties and the crowds dressed in red, white and blue.  At the time I was more interested in the pictures I could take of the people - as the youngest photographer I was a bit low in the pecking order and I didn't get a good view point of the procession - so I concentrated on going out into the crowds to capture the characters and eccentrics that make up all quintessential British celebrations.  In the eighties it was punks frolicking in the fountains and crazy grannies with their grandchildren all dressed up…..what will it be this time?

Seeing these images for the first time nearly 30 years later has given me some closure, as they say, as the editing process is so much a part of the whole photographic business.  I can rest assured that I wont have to wait another 30 years to see how today’s images turn out.

Sarah Outen – a true inspiration!

People keep asking me about my first “First Woman” – why did I pick Sarah Outen to photograph as the first woman to feature in my growing number of portraits depicting amazing women who have achieved a first (sometimes more than one!) in their lives?

Well, let me go back to the beginning and you will see how Sarah has proved to be the inspiration for my whole First Women project. Back in the summer of 2009 I typed in “First Women” and came across Sarah’s Blog on the Internet – at that time she was focused on becoming the first woman to row solo across the Indian Ocean (and she completed the task in just 124 days). As soon as I read about her inspirational journey I was hooked and didn’t even wait for her to return to dry land before contacting her to see if she would let me photograph her for what was then an embryonic project!

I caught up with Sarah at Southampton Boat Show and then went to Rutland Water in Leicester where I was able to take some great portraits of Sarah and her faithful boat “Serendipity” or as Sarah nicknamed it - “Dippers”.

Nearly two years later Sarah joined me on the stage at the Accenture International Women’s Day Celebration and we had the great honour of both kicking off the event – with me doing the warm up act – and Sarah inspiring everyone with her tales of “can do” in the finale!

And proving that she really is a woman whose actions speak even louder than words, I was fortunate enough to see Sarah at London’s Tower Bridge departing for her next great adventure at the beginning of April: London 2 London – via the World.  It goes without saying that I am following her Blog and regular updates as she sets out on her epic journey around the world – take a look: http://www.sarahouten.com/blog/.

Why my International Women’s Day was really special

Had an amazing day in London on Tuesday and spoke at Accenture’s celebration of International Women’s Day.  The theme was “Pioneering Women” and with my growing collection of “First Women” portraits I am beginning to know a thing or too about that subject! I was first up on the stage and it was really exciting talking to around 350 people – mostly women of all ages and from all different jobs. Accenture told me that this was the seventh event they had organised to celebrate International Women’s Day and it was by far the best.  I was in good company with a star studded cast of women speakers including Sarah Outen, the first woman to row solo across the Indian Ocean, and coincidentally my “first woman” – hers was the first portrait that I took for the project.

We also heard Dame Julia Cleverdon, a British charity worker who served for 16 years as Chief Executive of Business in the Community and Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, a space scientist who spoke to the audience about getting more participation in science (and also brought her very well behaved baby along too!).  Sarah Treseder, Chief Executive of the RYA, and Gill Ryder, Director General of Leadership and People Strategy in the Cabinet were also great speakers.

I stayed in Kew and bagged another “First” in the form of the first Lord Speaker – photographed against the magnificent backdrop of Pugin’s panelled carpentry – and I sussed out a couple more lovely locations for photographing future firsts. I also managed to drop into the National Portrait Gallery and take in the press preview of a new show called Ida Kar, a not particularly well known Bohemian photographer who is described as someone “utterly at home in the world of artists and writers”. I loved what I saw – go see it!

Celebrating 100 Years of International Women’s Day

Just 24 hours to go before I am due to speak in London at the International Women’s Day celebration organised by Accenture. The focus for the celebration will be ‘Pioneering Women’ and is a great fit with my own First Women project. We will explore how far women have come in the last 100 years and look forward to what they will achieve in the future. Accenture has designed an agenda to inspire, encourage reflection and motivate our women to explore how they too can become pioneers. 

I have been asked to speak about “First Women” and will be exploring some of the questions put to me by host and top Australian comedian Deborah Frances-White. As Deborah is something of a female pioneer in the comedic field in her own testosterone fuelled country and is about to star in her own show “How to Get Almost Anyone to Want to Sleep With You” I am sure we are promised an afternoon of sharp wit and incisive comment.

Accenture’s intention is to leave the women (and 15 men!) delegates attending “with a sense that they too are capable of incredible things in their work and personal lives” – I have a feeling they wont be disappointed.

Anita Corbin, creator of FirstWomenUK

Girl on a Wire

This week Blue Peter viewers will see presenter Helen Skelton become the first person to high-wire walk between the chimneys of Battersea Power Station, in aid of Red Nose Day 2011. About this time last year Helen completed a 2,000-mile solo kayak along the Amazon for Sport Relief, again the first person to do so.  As I watched the You Tube video of Helen completing her walk balanced on just a 18mm thick piece of wire and 66 metres up in the air, I not only marvelled at her sheer bravery but also at her perfectly applied make-up. When I photographed Helen for First Women, she wanted to look glamorous too and the photographs I took of her on the Embankment at Putney really capture that “gritty but girly” look. And why not?   It’s really important that women rejoice in their own sexuality. Helen is a beautiful woman with a fantastically fit body – in the twenty first century we shouldn’t be afraid to celebrate that aspect of women – we have worked hard to win the freedom to look the way we want, and in my First Women photographs I am striving to show that truth: we are who we are and we should be able to display ourselves in the way we choose.

To see Helen as The Girl on the Wire, check out: http://tinyurl.com/65yvt93

Youth Forum at National Portrait Gallery discusses my portrait

The last time I visited the National Portrait Gallery I wondered why there were a group of teenagers gathered around my portrait of the "Golfing Sisters" staring earnestly and obviously in deep discussion. My curiousity got the better of me and I approached one of them and asked her for their feedback. She explained that they were part of the Youth Forum, a partnership with the NPG's Photographer's Gallery Forum. 

 

They felt that the portrait represented a close and informal relationship with the photographer and that came through in the way the sisters responded to the camera and photographer, relaxed and intrigued. Overall the teenagers felt it was a very positive image that was uplifting and iconic in its Britishness! They had also been looking in to my history and finding out about First Women. It was great to hear them say that the project was an inspiration to them as young women.

I took a picture of two of the students - here they are in front of my portrait of the Golfing Sisters.

 

Renee (on the right) is a first year photography student at the college, coincidentally, where I studied, PCL, now called the University of Westminster. Remi is a 3rd year student at Wimbledon; majoring in Photography.

Anita, Creator of FirstWomenUK