It's by Steven Gill. It is a collection of photos all made on disposable cameras. 500 were given out to postmen, who documented their days. The photos are wonderful, a nice ethnographic study of the people of Britian, and the landscape, as well as showing all what might happen in the day of a postman. There are some humorous bits- a section of dogs, which are notorious for biting postmen, and one postman who claims that the dogs are telepathic. There is a section which follows the huge distances some have to walk, and the number of stairs they have to climb a day, as well as a section on the "thorny" issue of rubber bands. I liked the photos because they show Britain from a view point which I had not idea about, hadn't even considered. They are also a very un-stereotypical view of Britain- the photos are taken by people of everything and anyone, and the end result is not postcard pretty, but it is recognizable and interesting. Here is an example of some photos:
The photos are a collection in a book, and he had to choose about 100 from 1600 photos, so they are very much edited, which is something I think would be a difficult thing to do. The photos he's chosen are quite iconic and humorous. I liked the dead arm in the letterbox, and the eyes of the scary dog; these two things seems to sum up the life of a postman. This project was really interesting because it has shown me that I can do all sorts of things, not just focus on charities.
Therefore, I have had a bit of a wind change. This has been spurned on by the revelation that I need to hand a photo in in 3 weeks... and I haven't started shooting at all. I also need to hand in my photos in some technical format- and I need to make this over the christmas holidays. Therefore, I should be shooting most of the photos now.
I am getting nowhere with my ideas, so I need to change them. I have been mind mapping ideas, and here are some of the ones i came up with:
1) Community cooperative bike shops. I have worked in lots of bike coops. They are great and interesting, but disorganized. I wanted to get lots of bike coops together and make a project with them all- they are often unlinked and not known about. This is a huge project though.
2) Community gardening. This is a really popular but relatively unknown thing too. There are 22 such gardens in Sussex, and they are pretty friendly. I could take photos of one or lots. (one for now) and collect these.
3) Alternative christmas's. Capitalizing on the huge number of exchange students I know, I was thinking of asking lots of students to take photos of what their christmas looks like, and this can compare families and cultures. Problem with this- I wouldn't get the photos until around a week before the submission. If i built the web stuff before, this might be ok.
4) a bit of a weird one; was thinking of giving cameras to lots of people with the task to take photos: aliens/50 years in the future might want to see. This might get a lot of strange photos- some political and some mundane. this might highlight hegemony and what people think is important.
5) leave a camera on a bench, with sign to take a photo. see what they take photos of.
Going to try the last one tomorrow! I will also be sending lots of emails around to try and think of some ideas.
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