The Brief
Create a series of 6-8 images of individuals from one particular community that you are not connected to or part of.
Keep in mind that “community” can be interpreted in a variety of ways, for this assignment the community you choose to photograph should reflect an experience and/or perspective that is different to yours. For example, they may be shop owners in a particular neighbourhood, or members of a particular club, or a group of individuals that work in the same trade or organisation. You may also decide to photograph people who belong to a different ethnic group or religious tradition from yourself.
Don’t forget to implement your model release or consent form, and gain written consent from the individuals featured in the work. You may choose to share these photographs in the Ethics and Representation Forum or privately (e.g. via a private learning log link) with your tutor.
Think carefully about the visual language of your photographs – how you compose your images should reflect something about the individual and the community they are part of. What might your position be? What might you need to be aware of going into a community to which you are an ‘outsider’? How did you approach these exercises and what did you learn from them? Would you make any changes to your process for any future work?
Supporting Padlet
For more details on how I approached this assignment, please see the below Padlet:
https://oca.padlet.org/richard5198861/assignment-2-supporting-padlet-wzxjktx1o3po65be
The Series
Reflection
On reflection, my choice of community suited this assignment. I approached the group in advance, explaining my intentions, the idea of informed consent etc and gained agreement from the leadership to proceed. On the day, I used a personal experience of not being asked for consent to give context to the discussion and gain their trust. During the session, I talked to them about their individual reasons for volunteering, concluding that the series shouldn’t be about them as individuals, but as a team. This informed how I curated the final series, majoring on the collaborative nature of their work, while including visual references to their reasons for being there. I struggled with the consent form, because when I first met them, we were outside getting ready for their work. If I’d sent it in advance, the initial conversation we had would have been circumvented by formality. I sent the form after the fact, which was good for them as I followed up on my ‘promises’. However, it wasn’t helpful in my ability to use the images if, say, I’d been on paid assignment. I conclude that securing informed consent to shoot is easy if you build a rapport, but closing the second loop, the use of images, is more ethically challenging in terms of when the form is produced. Ethically, my concern was being respectful, documenting the work but not photographing people stumbling or wearing expressions that could embarrass them. As the series was an outside perspective, built purely on my observation of something I wasn’t part of, it didn’t feel like a transaction that needed the legal formality of the form. I suspect this is more an assumption of needing to protect from a threat, which I didn’t see during this shoot. I didn’t have to work that hard to gain their trust. I think the form works well for more formal photography, perhaps more transactional than this event. However, I will explore this further as I consider my SDP, which will contain both ‘street’ style observations and formal portraiture.
Richard Fletcher OCA Photography Blog 