This week we were asked to submit 5-7 images that tell a story and receive and give feedback on our own and those submitted by others..
I chose to use images I took recently while on a visit to the Incinerator in Plymouth (research for my project on beach debris). I asked permission of the tour leader and the attendees explaining that I was taking images for my project. I was then asked to take images of the tour for the visitors who were all members of a U3A group with it in mind to be shared and used on their website. I thought about this as the introductory talks were going on and realised that my intentions for images were somewhat different to those that were being asked for by participants. In processing the images I selected out those for participants and those I was personally interested in which roughly divided into those with people looking at things and those that were looking at the interesting structures in the buildings and technology therein.
In selecting images for this exercise I have thought about story telling as in a local newspaper. There was a lot of contention when this Incinerator was built, especially being so close to housing. MVV Environment Ltd have opened the doors to visitors and regularly run educational visits in part consolidating acceptance of the plant in the community. My intention is to depict a visit in a way that will encourage others to visit as well.
Initially I was conscious of making images with people larger for local human interest and found that subconsciously I was positioning controversial aspects of the plant (the air filters and chimney where noise and poisonous pollutants and were thought to be potential hazards when it was built) as smaller images and lower down in the story. Perhaps this stemmed from my own enjoyment of the visit and the great job the leader did in explaining that these potential hazards have been minimised to acceptable levels. I have since reviewed the sizing to be less obviously differentiated.
Thinking about captions, as local newspapers seem to like these, I have thought of the following.
Togged and ready to tour
Bringing your rubbish in
Dropping rubbish into the incinerator
Fascinating control centre
In the turbine hall
Very quiet air filters
17 stories of high-tech processing
Sarah Newton Photography 