Fiona Campbell
Photographer / Artist
For most of my life, photography has simply been something I’ve done. I began taking photographs as a teenager growing up in rural Devon, with the countryside around me providing some of my earliest subjects.
In the early 1990s, I moved to New York’s Hudson Valley, where the landscape and the area’s long connection with artists and photographers opened up a much wider world of photography to me. I studied photography there, learning about its history and exploring different styles. I spent many happy hours in the darkroom, fascinated by the analogue chemical processes involved in making an image.
Over the years, I’ve photographed all sorts of things, from portraits and street photography to landscapes and album artwork. Mostly, though, I’ve just always been the one with a camera, photographing whatever caught my attention.
I returned to Devon, where I now live and work, using both digital and analogue photographic techniques.
My work has been exhibited throughout Devon. In 2022, I was awarded Best Digital Practice at the Riviera Winter Open at Artizan Gallery.
The Process
This collection of botanical photographs began during the first national lockdown in the spring of 2020, when my daily walks became more important than ever. What surprised me was that, despite walking the same paths day after day, there was always something new to notice.
I began bringing home bits of foliage from my walks and they became the focus of a new photographic project. Inspired in part by botanical collections I had seen preserved in museums, I built a flower press and began pressing what I collected. After a few weeks, I found the plants had been transformed into delicate, flattened forms quite different from the ones I had picked up.
Photographing them against a white background took that transformation a step further. Removed from their surroundings, they became simpler and more graphic, drawing attention to their shapes, colours and smallest details - more like botanical illustrations than living plants.
What started almost by accident has continued to evolve. I’m not looking for perfect botanical specimens; I often find the faded, damaged and weathered ones much more interesting, and there’s always something new to notice.
The plants I photograph are gathered locally and responsibly, mostly in and around Devon.
Selected Exhibitions
2026 Poison Garden (Invited Group Exhibition), Artizan Gallery, Torquay, UK
2025 Riviera Summer Open, Artizan Gallery, Torquay, UK
2025 Blooming, Cockington Court Gallery, Torquay, UK
2025 Women’s Open Exhibition, Artizan Gallery, Torquay, UK
2024 Riviera Winter Open, Artizan Gallery, Torquay, UK
2024 Riviera Summer Open, Artizan Gallery, Torquay, UK
2024 Women’s Open Exhibition, Artizan Gallery, Torquay, UK
2024 Green, Paradiso Gallery, Bovey Tracey, UK
2024 Our Natural World, Paradiso Gallery, Bovey Tracey, UK
2024 Flora and Fauna, Cockington Court Gallery, Torquay, UK
2023 Women’s Open Exhibition, Artizan Gallery, Torquay, UK
2023 Riviera Summer Open, Artizan Gallery, Torquay, UK
2022 Riviera Winter Open, Artizan Gallery, Torquay, UK (Awarded ‘Best Digital Practice’)
