Margaret Mitchell is a Scottish photographer who works within portraiture and documentary practice. Her work has recurrent themes of childhood and youth, place and belonging within it. She works on short and long term personal projects as well as editorially and on commissions. Her photography ranges from exploring various communities, children and childhood as well as long-term documentation projects on issues of social inequality. Ideas around the paths that lives take have been explored in several series. In 2018 she was awarded in the Sony World Photography Awards with her long term series In This Place. In 2017 she was awarded Gold in the Royal Photographic Society International Photography Exhibition IPE 160 for a series of environmental portraits from 'In This Place'. Her work is held in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland. Mitchell has exhibited at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery as part of 'When We Were Young | Photographs of Childhood from the National Galleries of Scotland. She has also shown work in the Taylor Wessing Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.
In 1994, Mitchell made the documentary work 'Family'. The series concentrated on the lives of Mitchell’s sister and her children in the Raploch area in the town of Stirling, Scotland, an area which scores highly in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. Mitchell states that photography as social commentary is what drew her into being a photographer and how her work 'Family' was 'rooted in the stigmatisation of certain strands of society' In her early career, she also worked in areas of disability and representation, working within participatory arts practice and as a photography lecturer for over 10 years. Her projects on childhood often contain a psychological aspect and she is quoted as saying she is "pulled by the personal, the experiential in people’s lives and that often includes issues-based work".Early portrait series include 'Tiree Schoolchildren', 'Into The Village' and later 'The Eastern Wood'. Mitchell continued to concentrate on her main themes. Her series ‘In This Place’ updates the lives of the people in 'Family' in a story of social inequality alongside the importance of family ties and the experience of loss. The work documents the family’s relationships against the backdrop of urban displacement and inequality that passes from generation to generation. This large documentary asks the viewer to consider how society operates and to see that choices are not equal for all people across the economic spectrum. It offers a broader commentary on social and domestic environment, opportunity and social inequality within Scotland and the UK. This work has been widely exhibited within awards, festivals and galleries. Other projects include 'The Guisers'which looks at the psychological and cultural aspects of children at Halloween in Scotland. This documentation of a centuries old tradition in Scotland explores the often complex reasoning behind the children's choices in Halloween costumes.
