The Project
The Make IT Yours “Telling Stories with Images and Words”
Project ran between July and October 2007 and was planned and
facilitated by Community ICT Officers Peter Holthuis and Lawrence
Westland with help from volunteers at Windmill Hill City Farm Computer Centre in
Bedminster, Bristol, UK. (www.windmillhillcityfarm.org.uk)
14 of the original 18 people who joined are presenting their
work on this website. We have respected the wishes of those who
preferred not to exhibit their work, but their input was none the
less essential to the success of the project.
Windmill Hill City Farm has been able to fund this program as
part of the national UKonline centre network (www.ukonlinecentres.com)
and as a Social Impact Demonstrators Project. For more information
on this project and others being run at the centre please use the
contact details for the Farm at the bottom of this page.
The Aims
The aim of this Make IT Yours project was to provide adults with
mental health issues the opportunity to use photography and
writing as a means of self expression through the use of
Information Communication Technology (ICT). This has then opened
up chances for learning about ICT related topics generally, such
as: getting online; using email, web design; image editing; word
processing; etc.
The Project Themes:
All participants were given the task of taking photographs and
writing text under the following themes:
1. The Learning Journey - first and last reaction to joining
the project.
2. Personal Space - a positive and negative space.
3. Neighbourhood - what you like most and least about where you
live?
4. Favourite Object - most and least favourite object.
5. Contentment - what makes you happy and sad?
6. Time of Day – favourite and worst time of day.
The interpretation of the themes was left wide open i.e. for
‘Favourite Object’, people or animals could be included. Given
the two parts within each of the 6 themes, photographers produced
12 pictures in total. All of these were used in the making of the
Make IT Yours website and a choice of themes were printed for the
mounted exhibition.
The themes provided a framework for people to tell the stories
behind their images and yielded some fascinating and often
emotional insights into our daily lives. The images speak for
themselves and clearly demonstrate the impact that taking part in
such a project can have. It highlights the huge potential for
developing confidence and skills through creative use of ICT.
The Photography
During the project we explored different areas of photography and
compositional techniques i.e. close up work, portraits and
landscapes. For some it was all a new experience and others had
varying degrees of skills and understanding of both ICT and
photography.
We used point and shoot digital cameras, single use film
cameras, flatbed and film/slide scanners, tripods and monopods,
laptops and desktop computers and an old but very reliable
printer!
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 was used to process images and
prepare them for printing. As can be seen from our results, some
people got right into this program and created fantastic effects
using a range of image editing techniques.
The Words
People were free to write as little or as much (within reason) as
they liked. This proved quite a challenge for most of us but we
got there in the end.
Throughout the project all participants kept a ‘theme
journal’ of their activities and were therefore required to
learn how to use a word processing program into which they added
text and pictures as they went along.
The Website
Once again Bob
Jones, our web design developer, has done us proud! He has
been involved all the way and came to sessions regularly
throughout the project informing us of progress and getting vital
feedback from the group about the feel and look of the website.
The website is constructed so that images can be viewed by each
photographer fronted by their self portrait and name. Clicking on
the ‘Photographers and Themes’ link on the menu bar presents
all of the themes we used and a short summary of each person.
Clicking on an individual thumbnail photograph will show each
photographer’s picture for that theme enlarged, plus the words
associated with it. There is also a ‘About the project’ page
which is what you are reading now!!
The Exhibition
As well as this website the photographs and words from the project
have been mounted as an exhibition. If you would like to exhibit
our work then please contact Windmill Hill City Farm on ++44
(0)117 9633252 and ask for the Computer Centre or email peter.holthuis@windmillhillcityfarm.org.uk
The launch of the exhibition is on World Mental Health Day –
10th October 2007 in the Training Room at Windmill Hill City Farm
between 6 and 9pm. It will then remain in position for the rest of
Family Learning Week and Get online Day on Friday 12th October 07.
World Mental Health Day – 10th October 2007
To celebrate the launch of our project website and mounted
exhibition we decided to coincide it with World Mental Health Day
given the relevance of mental health to the people involved in the
project.
Also, as the theme for this years World Mental Health Day is
‘Mental health in a changing world: the impact of culture and
diversity’, we feel that our images and words reflect this idea.
Go to the following websites for more information: www.wfmh.org
www.mind.org.uk
Yet to come
As part of this project we have also produced a number of short
films which are yet to be edited and processed. The intention is
that links will be set up on the Make IT Yours website so these
can be viewed online, but due to time restraints this has not been
possible yet. Watch this space!!
Copyright
Copyright of the photographs on this website remains with the
photographers that took the images. Images on this site may not be
used without express permission. Please respect our rights.
Where are we
Windmill Hill City Farm
Philip Street
Bedminster
Bristol
BS3 4EA
Telephone and Fax: 0117 9633252
Email: info@windmillhillcityfarm.org.uk
Website: www.windmillhillcityfarm.org.uk
