Biography
Kirsty Mackay (b.1970) is a documentary photographer living in Bristol. Originally from Glasgow she studied photography, at Glasgow College before leaving for New York and London, to work as a photographer’s assistant. Kirsty has worked with many world-class photographers including Herb Ritts, Nick Knight and Anton Corbijn.
As Kirsty pursued her own work, she gained an MA in Documentary Photography from the University of Wales, Newport; the photography school founded by Magnum photographer David Hurn.
In 2003 partnering with Vodafone, she created an exhibition using the first camera-phone available in the UK. Taking a picture a day for one year, iCapture was shown at the Deluxe Gallery, London. She is passionate about smartphone photography and is an ardent user of Instagram.
Kirsty is working on her first photo book, Generation Pink, which documents the bias for the colour pink amongst girls in the UK. She is also committed to a long term project, Pop Up Portrait Studio. A travelling, outdoor photo studio, that offers free portraits to passersby on the streets of the UK.
Portfolio
Not Here Long
Not Here Long is a series of portraits, taken over a decade. They were
conceived through the frustration of not having access to a studio. Streets, buildings, shop fronts, walls
and doors are used as backdrops. Each sitter is directed, allowing Kirsty to work with natural light. Kirsty
describes the process - “I think of the set up as I would a studio. I create a space for someone to be
themselves. I spend a few minutes with each person taking three frames.”
“There is
an appreciation that I am capturing that person, as they are now; with the light that has travelled from the
sun, reflected from each person, as they stand in front of me, their feet firmly planted on the face of the
earth, through my camera, through me onto the permanency film.”
The work is a
celebration of the human being. It is unlike a photo booth image; as it takes another human being to see and
bring out the qualities that make us human. “I look at people and want to record this moment in time; how
gentle, intense, awkward, fragile, tender, lonely, beautiful or alive they seem to be - because we are not
here long.
Portfolio
Generation Pink
Generation Pink is a photo book documenting the ‘age of pink’ amongst girls
in the UK. The work originated from a need to understand how such a rigid and out dated representation of
femininity, can have taken such a strong hold on the young female generation. The work goes beneath the
surface, of the rows of pink products for sale on the high street. Kirsty photographs the girls in the
private world, of their bedroom and shows us just how deeply this fashion infiltrates their lives.
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