The Project
The Picture Yourself Photography Project ran during
the summer of 2004 and was conceived and coordinated by staff
of the Computer Centre at Windmill Hill City Farm (www.windmillhillcityfarm.org.uk)
in Bedminster, Bristol, UK. It was funded through the Pockets
Fund that was administered by the Greater Bristol Foundation (http://www.gbf-uk.org).
The aims of the Picture Yourself project were to provide a setting
in which a group of people could explore the use of photography
as a means of self expression and:
· have a chance to experience new activities and art forms
and to learn new skills;
· become more confident in social situations and find new
ways of communicating with people;
· create an exhibition of pictures which people can enjoy
for a long time;
· to have fun and to ‘lighten up’ a bit.
We also hoped that the project would help enable the City Farm
to strengthen links with members of the local community.
The project started with the group looking at images taken by
famous and not-so-famous photographers. We discussed what makes
a strong image and looked at issues of composition. The group
was made up of people with widely varying experience of taking
pictures. Two members of the group had studied photography; most
others had used their cameras for family snapshots but had not
looked at photography as a particularly creative activity before.
Everyone who took part in the project had the task of taking
a number of photographs for each one of nine themes. The themes
and their explanations were:
1. Personal Space – wherever you feel comfortable or go
to be by yourself.
2. Neighbourhood/Street – an interpretation of the area
where you live.
3. Favourite Object – man made or from nature, something
you hold dear.
4. Happy Thoughts – something that makes you smile.
5. Not so Happy Thoughts – something that make you frown.
6. 13.00 hours / 1 pm – show what you were doing or where
you were at this time.
7. Playtime – any recreational activity you are involved
in.
8. Freeform – whatever, whenever, whoever, wherever etc.
9. Self Portrait – can be of you and/or of anything that
best represents you
The idea of using a set of themes to give structure to the project
was drawn from an Australian Photography Project called 4sight
run by Chris Yuen (http://www.rvib.org.au/eventscal/4sightLayout_files/4sightLayout.html)
.
By sharing our photographs, we also shared something of our
lives. People told stories behind their images, some happy, some
funny, and some sad. The themes were quite challenging to interpret
through photographs and so made everyone think about the power
of images. Everyone who took part in the project gained something;
new technical and creative skills; new friends; new confidence;
even a new way of thinking about photography…
The Exhibition
As well as this website the photographs and text from the project
have been mounted as an exhibition. If you would like to exhibit
the Picture Yourself photographs then please do contact us. You
can call Windmill Hill City Farm on +44 (0)117 9633252 and ask
for John Clarke or email info@pictureyourself.org.uk.
The Website
We wanted this website to be simple and about the photographs
we have all taken. We didn’t want to lose sight of people’s
images through fancy web design. Bob
Jones, the developer, has done us proud.
The website is constructed such that the images can be viewed
by theme or by photographer. Clicking on the ‘the themes’
link in the menu presents all of the themes we used. Clicking
on an individual theme will show each photographer’s photograph
for that theme. You can then click on the thumbnail images to
see each picture enlarged. Clicking on the ‘the photographers’
link presents all of the photographers that completed the project.
Clicking on an individual photographer will show that photographer’s
nine photographs. You can then click on the thumbnail images to
see each picture enlarged.
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.
Technical Details
Most of the images that make up the final project exhibition and
this website were taken using digital cameras but film cameras
were also used with negatives being scanned to digitise these
images.
We used Canon Powershot A75 cameras and a couple of compact film
cameras, a Minolta Dimage ScanDual IV film scanner, and a Canon
Bubble Jet i9100 printer using Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy.
Images were processed using Adobe Photoshop Elements 1.0. |
