I showed my photographs of Jamie at a uni crit, and the following questions/points came up. This is the first chance I have had to sit down and really think about them:
- Why am I doing this? What is my purpose? Who is the work for? What motivates me? Why do I spend the time setting up these meetings and talking to strangers?
I have become increasingly involved in and attached to my community since the birth of my daughter. It matters greatly to me that she grows up in an area where people are kind to each other and care about the environment in which they live. Therefore, if I am producing a project about the area, I want to be able to celebrate the positives (for there are many) and the people who make this possible. My motivation is threefold - firstly, I want to produce work good enough to pass my MA; secondly, I want to prove to myself and others that there are many good things about my chosen hometown; thirdly, I want to find and meet the people who are making Levenshulme a good place to live.
The work is for... the people of Levenshulme, I suppose, although I would hope that others would also find it interesting. The work describes a community that is quite unique, but I also hope that people will see something of themselves and their own community in it, that will draw them to it.
The work is for me and my family. I want us to be proud of our community. I want us to be involved. I want us to know people. I want people to know us.
- How would I describe myself as a photographer? What type of photographer am I?
I am a documentary photographer. I photograph life. I photograph Manchester. I photograph things that mean something to me. My previous work on abandoned buildings came about through my interest in the environment, and our relationship to it. This is a common theme in my work. Abandoned buildings represent a waste of the land, which incenses me, but also a history of the environment - things that came before, way in which the land has been used. My current work has developed by narrowing and narrowing down to a limited location but this has opened up more possibilities. I am still exploring the environment but it has become more personal - it my own environment and my work shows my developing relationship with it and the people in it.
I am an environmental photographer. I am a documentary photographer. I am not a portrait photographer, yet I am photographing people. I photograph naturally (or as naturally as one can in the falsified environment of arranging meetings for a project).
- What am I choosing to photograph? How am I choosing to photograph it?
I am photographing Levenshulme. I am photographing a community. I am photographing the environment. I am photographing, at a basic level, buildings and people. But buildings and people are what create a community, and therefore in its simplicity, the project becomes so much bigger than the sum of its parts. There is so much potential.
How I am choosing to photograph it is perhaps a more interesting question. I photograph as I would wish to be photographed, I think - naturally, shown as I am. I photograph in a style that feels natural but also that I admire in the work of others. I am drawn to a raw style of imagery - dilapidated buildings, unedited portraits that show the person, rather than an airbrushed 'reality' with which we are bombarded on a daily basis through the media. I like to think I photograph truthfully, although this is in itself is a subjective methodology.
- Why do I think something is working in a photograph?
When I feel I have captured the person or building as I have seen it; when I look at a photo and think, 'yes, that is so-and-so'. The picture is the person or is the scene as I saw it. I don't want a falsified image of life - I want to show it as it is. Should I want a pretty version of my subject, I will turn to watercolour painting or Impressionism to create a romanticised view. Photography (for me) is reality, or at least a close version of it. Of course, it is a limited viewpoint of a chosen subject, but it hopefully renders my own personal observations in a way that I feel is truthful to my vision.
- What questions am I asking? What am I choosing to transcribe?
The questions I have consistently asked the campaigners are: What do you do in Levenshulme (in terms of campaigning/making improvements to the area)?; How much of your own time do you devote to this work?; What do you like/dislike about Levenshulme?
These questions are shoehorned into the conversation, but it also runs naturally. I have found that the questions are often answered through people's desire to talk to me about what they do?
Initially I wrote down what I thought were the important points in conversations - factual information about that person's work, but also key sentences and quotes that represented their 'voice' - gave a more personal feel to the text. However, I didn't feel I was effectively capturing the sound of people so I began to record conversations. This provided very interesting as it alerted me to repetitive phrases and intonations in speech, which really recreated the subjects' voices for me. However, how to relate this to the viewer? In transcribing text, it becomes unreadable - long, dense and off-putting. I also worry that my subjects will not like the written version of themselves - perhaps a written transcription of conversation is not always the most flattering representation if that person repeats or hesitates frequently, whereas in speech this sounds animated and exciting. But without this length, is it possible to recreate the person's voice? And do I need to? This is something toward which I am working - drawing out key sentences and phrases to see if it creates an effective 'portrait' of an individual without resorting to reams of text.
- Why will people be drawn to this work? What do I want them to think?
I hope that people will recognise these individuals in themselves. I hope that people will be drawn to the stories of individuals. I hope that people will empathise. I hope that people will put together a story of the community of Levenshulme through that actions and interactions of the people I speak to.
I want people to think that Levenshulme is an interesting place, full of interesting people. I would like people in Levenshulme to find out more about their community, and I would like to inspire others to go and find out more about their own communities. I think I am harking back to an imagined age where people left their front doors open and everybody was known to the local bobby. Is this even real, let alone something we can recreate? Perhaps not, but I am sure it is possible to create a modernised, realistic version of my vision. Recent forays into groups on Facebook have left me feeling more positive about this; people do want a community, and perhaps this is being created in a slightly different way to in the past, but there is no reason why social media and the internet cannot facilitate a more cohesive community in the way that once chats over the garden fence and church coffee mornings did. Times have moved on.
- How do I describe Levenshulme through my work?
I want to describe Levenshulme as a vibrant and exciting community; one in which the residents care a great deal about their environment and trying to protect and improve it. Every time I come away from a meeting with a campaigner, I feel empowered, inspired. Every time I step out of my front door and encounter another pile of excrement, discover a dumped mattress, am confronted by loud music, see the ‘metal men’ zoom past on the hunt for scrap to steal… I feel deflated.
I feel the need to explain myself, my community. I have nominated myself a voice for my community; whether this is a welcome nomination remains to be seen. However, for now I want to make connections – the six degrees of separation oft quoted is more like one degree in Levenshulme. Everybody knows everybody one way or another. Every new person I encounter knows so-and-so down the road and is a friend-of-a-friend. By introducing these people to each other and further afield in the community, the community can become even stronger. Every person I have spoken to and photographer so far has become a friend. I have never known so many people, been invited to so many houses, met so many like-minded people. This project has become more than a photography qualification – it is integrating me into my own community in a way that perhaps I never would have had the confidence to do myself. I feel known in the community – I feel that now I will be the friend-of-a-friend and just one degree away from everybody. And do you know what? That is a nice feeling. I belong. I am known. I am part of it. And now I feel that I belong to my community, I want to represent them fairly and positively.
I am a photographer. I am a writer. Photographs and text a happy marriage make. My photographs need text to explain themselves; they are mere portraits without and my subjects already have a story to tell. I want to tell this story; I want people to know my subject insofar as I get to know them when I meet them.
I write. I photograph. I speak. I photograph.