The first project of my final year; 

As this was to be one of my final projects of university, I wanted to make it something that I would carry with me when I left university. I wanted it to be something that would help others and educate/encourage them in some way. With this, I decided that I wanted to do something completely different but still work with charities as I knew that this was something that I wanted to do after university. With this, I contacted Cerebral Palsy Plus in Bristol as I had been talking to a lady at the Genesis Trust who had been suffering with the disability since a very young age. 

Initial thoughts:

My initial thought for this project was that I wanted to continue to work with people in the portraiture aspect of photography. I am always wanting to make a difference within my photography and educate people as much as I can in the process. For this reason, I would like to work with charities again so that I can fully inform myself and my audiences. I will be getting in contact with charities surrounding these ideas…

Project Proposal:

‘Half way through year one, I was contacted by the Genesis Trust (a charitable organisation in Bath who run 10 projects in support of the homeless) and asked to be their photographer, after they saw my project on the Street Pastors. I have been working as Genesis Trust’s photographer ever since and have had my photographs featured in all of their newsletters, articles and leaflets. Because of this, I’ve felt genuinely proud about the work that I did during that project and that I was able to make a difference and impact the charity so much. Since then, I have grown continuously passionate in giving people a voice and helping people through my photography so continuing to work with charities is something that I would like to do for the next year and continue doing after leaving university. I have been in contact with international charities in the hope for some work abroad, which will hopefully take me in the direction of humanitarian photography. This is why I have decided to continue my work with charities in project 1 as I feel that it will help me to progress and grow as a photographer, and hopefully allow me to gain more links to people.

I decided that I am definitely leaning in the direction of a portrait photographer, especially since working on my 100 women project at the end of last year. There were times within that project that I found incredibly frustrating because I found being 100% reliant on other people really difficult as they would sometimes cancel and reschedule so it would mess my other shoots up. This was something that I learnt to work with as it ended up really helping my organisational and communication skills.

Moving forward, I would like to further develop and use these skills within project 1 where I will be talking and communicating with all sorts of people as I endeavour to work with clients who use charities. The aim of this project will be to show people the work that the charities do to help the people who attend the projects it runs. I have been in touch with Cerebral Palsy Plus, a charity in Bristol who help people suffering with Cerebral Palsy. I have a meeting set up with the head of the charity where I am hoping to learn more about the charity and what I could do to help them through my photography. I hope to inform and educate everyone on the highs and lows of living with cerebral palsy and the relationships that revolve around them. In order to do this, I will be interviewing and photographing different aspects of the people’s lives. I am not entirely sure how I want to execute this idea yet but I feel as though I need to start shooting in order to understand where I want the project to go and how I want the photographs to look and feel for my audience.

I will also be working with people in project 2 and will be carrying on working on projects that have themes of relevance to today’s society. My project will be focusing on the effects of Brexit on Eastern European’s living within the UK and also how it affects Brits living in other EU countries. I will bring in my personal side to it as I was born in Boston, the most pro-Brexit town in the UK. I will answer how that has affected me and my views within my photographs as well as (possibly) showing how Brexit will affect my family who moved out to Bulgaria 3 years ago.

I will be working closely with people for both of these projects so I understand that I need to be continually understanding of their views and how they want to be portrayed as well as how I want my project to be viewed by other people. I have already thought about consent, wellbeing and any ethical issues that would come with either of these projects and have been working to make sure that I am as sensitive as I can be when approaching people. Even though I am producing these projects to help and support people, I understand that the people I will be working alongside in the charities will be vulnerable so I will need to be even more careful with how I approach things. When it comes to this project, I am getting help with the staff that I work with at the Genesis Trust as they understand and have known the clients a lot longer that I have.

I want to use this final year as a learning curve and stepping stone to get involved in as many charitable organisations as I can. I aim to get my photography seen by potential future clients and any future job opportunities. I will also be using this year to experiment with more photographic and media platforms like the use of both digital and film photography as well as potentially using video technique for my interviews.

Contacting Charities:

I got a lot of people emailing me after this post, asking me more about my project and what I would be expecting from my subjects. I had a lot interest in my project because of the way that I worded the post and contacted the head of the charity. I find that this is the best way of initially starting my projects because I can get more of a feel for people’s interest in my project and how many people would get involved.

Finalising my project, I was really happy with the outcome of my work and felt genuinely proud that I had been able to work with three amazing individuals. The fact that they all welcomed me into their home and lives made me feel so humble and proud and actually really emotional that they trusted me to document their lives in a way that they would be happy with. I am so glad that I was able to work with people of all ages living with Cerebral Palsy and show a large diversity within the work, as well as giving them a voice. Some of my final photos from the project are below as well as my book on the opening exhibition night. 

The above images are of Finn, aged 7 and his family in their home in Chew Magna. 

Olivia with her partnerJames in their home in Bath. 

Nath, in his home in Bristol. Nath lives independently to his parents but has 24hr care come in and take care of him throughout the days and nights.