The Challenges and Triumphs of a Photography Project

I’ve not blogged for some time, and the most reasonable excuse I can give is the one most often given: I’ve just not had time. Over the past year, my photography project The Dyslexia Portrait has kept me very busy. I’ve learned so much over the past year, and had some amazing experiences which I’ll try and write about in this blog.

Getting ready to hang pictures on a wall...

I last wrote in November at the very start of the project, about exploring the links between dyslexia and creativity, setting out what I thought The Dyslexia Portrait Project would and could achieve. I’m now nearing the end of this part of the project. I’ve interviewed and photographed 12 very different people, and worked with them to create an image that represents their experience of dyslexia. These pairs of images will be exhibited at the Brynmor Jones library at the University of Hull from the 2nd of October to the 11th of November 2017. As I write, I’m just working on getting the last image right, and then it’s all the practical stuff to sort out; editing hours of audio interviews, planning and scaling up for the exhibition, and working out all those tiny details which you always forget when planning an exhibition. What I took from exhibiting last summer, was at the process all takes a lot more time, thought, and planning than you initially think. I’ve also had to really think hard about the exhibition process itself, and one of my biggest learning curves on this project has been getting to understand what I want the exhibition to look like, and more importantly why. It really isn't enough just to put pictures on a wall. Curating and exhibiting is in itself an art, and should be part of the process, part of the exhibition experience. I’ve been really fortunate to have the guidance, help and support from both Artlink Hull and the Square Peg project manager, and VA consultancy, both of whom are really talking me through the process of not only planning, but designing the exhibition itself.

Getting noticed...

When I started this project, and put the call out for people with dyslexia to get in touch with me, I didn’t know whether I would receive hundreds of responses, or none. At times it was slow going, I think when people have seen or heard about the project, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. However the difficulty is getting your project noticed, heard about and talked about amongst a so many other projects and work going on. Social media is a fantastic tool, but it’s also not a magic wand. This there is so much out there on the Internet that is interesting, fascinating, intelligent and clever, so naturally it’s really hard to get a new project noticed. If this sounds like a complaint, it isn’t. I didn’t want the project to be noticed for its own sake, but rather so that I could reach out to people with dyslexia and invite them to work with me. The aim of the project always was to represent the diversity of the dyslexic experience, therefore the more people the better. The Internet is a global beast, and frustratingly therefore, I also had some amazing responses from overseas, which I just wasn’t able to travel to interview and photograph them. I have created few images of these people's interpretation of their dyslexia, via email and social media, but the exhibition itself will focus on the paired images only.

I also took the bold (for me) step of writing to people in the public eye directly, who talked publicly about having dyslexia, and asked them to work with me. Three of those people who replied were already British Dyslexia Association ambassadors, and they were fantastic to work with. The other was Sam Allardyce, ex-England football manager, and at the time manager of Crystal Palace football club. Sam’s positive response was a very pleasant surprise, and it was a pleasure to interview him and work with him. But of the many many emails and letters I wrote and sent, these are the only four who responded, and I am fully aware that people in the public eye must get hundreds of these kinds of requests and invitations all the time.

Challenges...

The people I’ve interviewed and shots for the project have been very different, from all walks of life with different and interesting tales to tell. I’ve travelled from London to Edinburgh speaking to people, and shooting the portraits in very different circumstances. It’s been a real challenge as a photographer to work under these circumstances. I've found myself having to interview someone, record it, discuss their requirements for an image, and shoot a portrait in well under an hour. I’ve not always been able to pick my locations, as I’ve had to meet the person and do the shoot wherever was convenient for them. Lighting, weather, and location all have a huge impact on the picture you take, and have had to shoot in very much less than ideal circumstances and still get something I could be proud of. I had to think fast, adapt, and use all my knowledge of the camera to get good shots. One portrait shoot was literally about 2 minutes long, and that was all the time we had.

I think most photographers, when they set out to shoot a portrait of somebody, have an image in their mind how they want the shoot to look and be, and in an ideal world you would have all the time in the world to set up, make up, adjust background and lighting to realise that shot that you have in your mind, and this just isn’t always doable, and it certainly wasn’t on this project. However, this being said, I’m still really proud of the portraits that I have. People have commented how much I put them at their ease during shoots, and make them feel comfortable, which reflects comments I had when I did the 'Portraits' project a while ago. So as much as I always have anxiety about portrait shoots, I think I’m learning to allow them to be more organic, less controlled, and allow the resulting image to flow and be.

Standing by your Aesthetic...

The other aspect of this project of course is the idea of creating a visual image of that person’s experience of dyslexia. This has been a whole other set of challenges, mainly in reconciling my own artistic and creative aesthetic with the vision and requirements of the participant. It’s a particular feature of many dyslexic people that they are incredibly visual thinkers, so as they are describing their experience to me, they’re probably seeing it visually. It’s nigh on impossible for me to replicate that faithfully, and as the project has developed, I started to explain to people that I was never going to replicate that for them, but it would be an image that had been filtered through my own creative aesthetic. This takes confidence to say, as you start out wanting to please people, and you end up creating something that isn’t a reflection of their experience, but is a reflection of my understanding of their experience as told to me. It’s an odd one to reconcile, but thankfully, the comments from the participants have been mainly positive.

Digital Art or Photography?

Creating the images themselves has been another learning curve, one that has taught me much about post-production skills, and has deepened my leaning towards creative and abstract photography. Every single one of the images in the project started out as a photograph by me, but some of them have been through so much post-production, that I do question sometimes whether the images are becoming digital art/digital design rather than abstract photography. I don’t know where the lines are. I don’t know whether it matters. I’m proud of the images, I think they’re beautiful, I think they reflect an important aspect of a person’s experience, and I hope that they raise awareness and teach people about the experiences of dyslexia. I’m not sure it matters what we call them, although I’m sure that there be many who would disagree with me.

What next?

I said towards the beginning of this blog, but I’m getting ready to exhibit, and in many ways this feels like the final countdown of the project. When the exhibition closes in mid-November, it will have been running for almost exactly a year. I don’t want this to be the end of the project. When I started the project I had more plans for it that I still want to realise. I’d like to do something with stop-motion animation, a short film, a book, and to continue inviting collaboration and making images of people’s experiences. However, I have so far run this project alongside my day job, and in addition to that day job, I start at university in September this year, on a Masters degree. It therefore seems, that I will have to slow down on the project for a while and concentrate on getting my Masters, as I don’t anticipate that that will be an easy task. I’m planning therefore, to continue to invite collaboration on a smaller scale. If people want me to interview them about their experience, and create an image and a portrait, then the online gallery of pictures will live and grow and become a living resource which will hopefully educate and widen perceptions about the experience of dyslexia. I’d also like to exhibit the images in other cities and other places, and I’m already following up leads for this. But it does seem that the pace of work over the last year will necessarily have to slow for the time being whilst I go and get myself educated.

And finally...

It wouldn’t be right to end this blog without thanking a great number of people who helped and advised with the dyslexia portrait so far. The project was part funded by Artlink Hull, and the Square Peg Project with funding from Hull City of Culture, but there’s a great deal of hidden costs and hidden needs in a project of this scale, so I will end here with a list of people I need to express my gratitude to. (In no particular order). This includes you for reading this far, anyone who has engaged, liked, shared on social media. Thank you

Rachel French, Square Peg Project Manager at Artlink Hull

Verity Adriana, who basically told me it was okay to trust my judgement (something I have a hard time doing)

David Wilson for setting up the audio and finding me free stuff to use

Jamie Topliss-Yates for literally hours of audio editing

Jason Croft, for holding my hand, up a muddy cliff path at 4am in the morning to get a sunrise shot, and for making cups of tea on his camping stove

Kat Orrett and Kathryn Newcombe for being excellent models

Rosalind Smith for voice acting

All of the participants in The Dyslexia Portrait Project. You are all amazing people.