Assignment 8
Perhaps like a lot of photographers I have a great concern that children at play in their own environment, left to their own devices and away from the influence of adults are no longer being recorded as society all too readily thinks the worst of anybody taking pictures of their offspring. Whilst this situation is in some ways understandable and very difficult to argue against it is a great shame that future generations may not have available the historical social documentary photographs of children that we view and which contain so many iconic images.
This issue forms the basis of my assignment content and whilst the image is not perhaps the best produced it was the one chosen by the participants Kayley and Marnie the two 11 year old girls who are neighbourhood and school friends. The most remarkable thing is that Kayley, the girl doing a somersault on the garden trampoline, had a heart and lung transplant just 6 months ago, her friend Marnie being quite insistent I use this image as she proudly felt it showed "that her best friend was now better".
Kayleys family live in inner Liverpool in a run down area desperately effected by all the social issues evident in such deprived areas and her mother, a single parent, has suffered very difficult times as she has intensively nursed Kayley since her medical problem developed when she was two years old. Although I had met her previously I was delighted with her response when I approached her to request her permission to involve her daughter. Once I explained about the principals of participatory photography her enthusiasm immediately involved Marnies mother and half the street was soon volunteering their kids to take part. This response was interesting, bearing in mind my earlier comments about parent's wariness of photographers, and whilst it may be a dangerous assumption, I wonder if middle class guardians would have responded similarly. The enthusiasm reminded me of my childhood, particularly as I was brought up in a similar setting, and people's general inquisitiveness and willingness to be involved in something new. This is something I will investigate further.
The parents cooperated fully and after they withdrew I provided the girls with a disposable camera each and gave some basic instruction on their use and tips on composition. I provided the children with a list of ideas or picture types such as happy, sad, running, jumping or serious etc.. The only thing I asked them not to do was pose, but take pictures of each other doing what they normally did when their mums weren't watching. I left them to it and returned two hours later to collect the cameras.
When I returned with the photographs the children were really pleased although they had ignored my suggestions on content and concentrated on the trampoline at the rear of their terraced house. Notwithstanding numerous pictures of fingertips blocking the lens and blurred and out of focus shots caused by them being to close together there were some great shots and the delicate use of fill in flash on the image posted was very impressive (?). The fact that they got any pictures at all is amazing as both photographer and model were both bouncing at the same time!
With the cooperation of their mothers I think the series of pictures succeeded in showing these children at play without any conditioning of parental concern or suspicion and portrayed them as one might wish in a perfect world. These children usually play in the street outside their homes and I had hoped they would have used their cameras in that environment. It seems that the special event I had created for them demanded the use of their very special possession, the trampoline.