Fran May was born one of eight children in Vancouver. In 1962, the family moved to
the UK. Starting as a Fine Art Painting student, she completed her education at the
Royal College of Art in 1978 with a Masters Degree in Photography. In the last two
years while at the Royal College of Art, she was under the tuition of the famous
documentarian Bill Brandt.
Her first appointment in 1979 came from The Brooklyn Museum as The Theban Royal
Tomb Project Photographer, in Egypt. She spent six months documenting the Valley of
the Kings. Working alone with the project Director, she found statues of King Rameses XI
and the goddess Ma’at, together with the foundation deposit contents, all of which were
3,000 years old. On her return, she took studio space in Hoxton Square to build a
freelance photography business, working for the British Museum, The Sunday Times
Magazine and on documentary projects in Africa.
Later work included creating images for large corporate companies, investment banks and
law firms. After creating a visual project on the history of science of Cambridge University,
and the subsequent collaboration with Trinity College, Fran was employed by a large
number of scientific research companies to visually express their business models. She
continued creating portraits of those at the forefront of science and technology for
Cambridge University College alumni publications until the age of sixty-three, when she
moved to Bath to work on ideas for books.
In 2019 Fran published a book of the documentary work she made while a student
between 1974-1978. During this time, Fran travelled to over twenty destinations in the
UK to photograph Northern towns, followed by an extensive document of Brick Lane in
East London.
Current projects include a book on the architecture of Bath and one on the coastline of
the British Isles. Fran also continues to criss-cross the UK on her perpetual quest to
re-discover the British life with her distinctive poetic documentary vision.
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