Sharing and participation

Yep, it's true... Whenever I get involved in a participatory photography project, I always make sure that we only use only top-of-the-range, mega-£££ss cameras!

Actually, I'm much more interested in folk's getting to use their phones and any cheap bits of kit they have lying around the place as they make their images. Participatory photography is about inclusion and voice, seeing and understanding the world from perspectives that  might challenge our own, and then becoming aware of the otherwise invisible structures of our lives. Mostly it seems that 'professional' cameras distance the photographer from their subject in a way that is usually unhelpful. Camera-phones and 'snapshot' cameras enable people to place more emphasis on the relationships they are working among.  

But I've just heard that one of Global Generation's corporate associates will be using some of the images we made around King's Cross in and around the massive KX development site.  It sounds like a great 'result' for the work that the 'Generators' did together earlier this year.

This image shows 'T' hard at work as the group inquired into the experience of being a young person living around the King's Cross area.  I was suddenly intrigued by the beauty of the henna'd patterns on her hands as she worked the camera - it felt emblematic of the cultural, technological and ecological diversity that is a key part of the Global Generation's work and holds so much potential for KX and the development that is underway.

Oh, yeah - her pictures were pretty cool too....;-))