I’m getting very sick of the project work I’m trying to shoot at the moment for my MA as it’s just not enjoyable. I’m constantly on the defensive, with people thinking the worst of me and my intentions and it’s grinding me down. Yesterday for a while I felt like I had a very modest breakthrough – I met a few young mums on the Travellers’ camp I’ve been visiting over recent weeks, and made a few images although the women were all relunctant to be photographed without their make up (a bit of an excuse I think). There were two young sisters who I particularly warmed to, aged 21 and 24, and I spent really quite a long time talking to them about people’s perceptions of Gypsies and their own experiences growing up and as adults. Both were very thoughtful and bright, and independently volunteered lots of interesting opinions. Later, I received a phone call from the woman who had introduced me to her neighbours. The two sisters were now very suspicions of the fact that a ‘house person’ was interested in them and their community and were worried that I might be an undercover policewoman or in some way damage their husbands businesses. The only thing we discussed about this was how the men go about finding customers…I asked because I’m genuinely curious about most things. I do ask a lot of questions, but that they are freaking out makes me feel bad because I was only being friendly and being myself. This project is starting to do my head in now. I’m used to people sometimes reacting negatively towards me because I’m a journalist and they have preconceptions about what that means. Of course I understand why the Gypsy community is closed off and have experienced it before. But this is a constant drip-drip of hostility and mistrust and misunderstanding and is incredibly corrosive for me and the way I approach what I’m doing.
Today I passed the half-way point in a seven-week teaching project I’m involved in, in which I’m helping a group of 10-year-olds put together a newspaper. It’s an interesting experience which has given me a whole new level of respect for teachers – mostly for their patience. I’m enjoying it on many levels but it’s made me appreciate my own job and relieved I didn’t go into teaching as I initially planned to, because I really don’t think I have the personality for it. I spent a year teaching English to French sixth-formers during my degree, which was challenging in different ways. Anyway, I’ll probably write about the exprience properly once it’s over but for now I’ll just share a child’s view of a tour we took last week of the Manchester Evening News office, which tickled me when I saw it today.
I went to Carlisle today to take some formal portraits of some residents of a Gypsy site for my Rethink project. This was the first time I’ve used my white backdrop and I’m not that experienced with lighting, so there are definitely things which leap out to me already which I could have done better. Nevertheless it was a valuable learning experience and I’m pleased with what I’ve come back with, which with a little basic editing should be ok. Each person chose what they wanted to wear and the postures to be photographed in. I then showed the resulting portraits to each subject on my laptop as we went along, and they told me which they wanted me to use in the project. I asked each of them one basic question, which will form the basis of the photo captions. It’s nice to finally have a backbone for the project, after what feels like months of thrashing around in a state of panic and frustration. I will be going down some other avenues with this in the weeks to come, but this is a cracking start. Huge thanks go to my friends Joe and Jane Ann for helping me out with this.
I almost don’t dare believe it but things might be starting to happen with a photo project which I’ve been thinking about for almost two years. Britain’s new Roma communities are closed off to say the least and this is how long it’s taken to start meeting the right people. Finally though I’ve started making a few initial images – albeit for editorial commissions – and feel like someone from the community really gets what I hope to do and is making positive noises about helping me make contact with other people. Who knows if this will actually happen – I keep reminding myself though that photographers manage to deal with difficult subjects and communities all the time, so there’s really no reason why I can’t get there eventually, hopefully before my final MA project deadline late this year. On another front I’m off to Cumbria early tomorrow to try to push ahead with my Rethink project – I’m trying my luck with another English Gypsy community where I know some residents, before returning to my original family – hopefully in a more positive frame of mind than before. Onwards…
This is something new for me but I’m going to be keeping Benjamin from Duckrabbit company at Photography Still Moving, a seminar on photography and multimedia at Format Festival in Derby this Saturday, after David – his usual partner in crime – had to drop out. Come and say hello if you’re there.
I’m often struck by the ironies of this industry. You can push for weeks or even months for something – an interview, a particular photo, a commission – which just won’t happen, for reasons out of your control. Then within days another opportunity can arise and all of a sudden everything happens easily, perhaps in the way you originally intended, or maybe in a way you could not have imagined. I’ve been having a stressful few weeks, with paid and personal projects not coming together easily and I’ve been struggling to manage expectations of what is possible – both my own and other people’s – something which has really undermined my confidence. But a few good things have happened over recent days – a commission I’ve been desperate to secure for months, an encounter with a fantastic Roma lady (above) who I very much hope to get to know better, and alternative plans which I hope will help my until-now rather disastrous MA Rethink project turn a corner over the coming week. I know my own state of mind has a huge impact on my work and I’ve been feeling pretty negative so far this year – which is in itself frustrating because I know this period is very precious. It doesn’t take much though for me to break out of this cycle – a friendly (or responsive, even) editor, a word of praise or encouragement, a nice email, an open-minded subject and, indeed, more light and better weather. If I’m able to mentally turn this corner then I’m sure things will start looking up.
I gave disposable cameras to a few kids on the Gypsy site that I’ve been visiting over recent weeks, to see what they come up with. I’d love to find a way to incorporate this into my Rethink project, if I ever manage to shoot any photos that I like. If I do this on future projects though I might try buying a handful of very cheap digital cameras – it would be far more cost effective and greener than these shoddy throwaway cameras. Hopefully the girls will have a bit more for me tomorrow. As for me, I’m keeping everything crossed that wind and rain doesn’t stop my photographic plans.
The debate about the infernal Big Fat Gypsy Weddings series, which ended a few weeks ago, continues to rage. This show is becoming the bane of my life at the moment, because of the difficulties I’m having getting what I want for my MA and Rethink project, so when someone sent me a link to this piece from the BBC’s College of Journalism blog, which asks whether the show had been a documentary or mockumentary, I left this comment:
I’m not a Gypsy or Traveller but I am a journalist who works regularly with English Gypsies in the north of England and count a number as friends.
From an audience point of view, BFGWs was great TV – titillating, manipulative, car-crash fodder of the lowest common denominator kind. Most definitely a mockumentary trussed up as factual viewing.
And I’d have to agree with Jake Bowers about the damage it has done. It’s had a huge impact which I can personally attest to, as can any professionals who work with GRT communities (eg traveller education teams, support workers).
I’m doing a documentary photography project with a family who run a (privately owned) Gypsy site in northern England at the moment and the level of paranoia and mistrust as a direct result of that programme is enormous.
These communities have never been very open and it’s always taken time to win people round, but barely anyone else on the site will so much as give me the time of day, such is the fear of outsiders. They all just want to be invisible.
The residents of this site have suffered threats from local yobs, they are being refused entry to pubs and clubs in the town, and their kids are getting teased in school (more than before) about what was shown in the programme. Obviously, they’ve never had it exactly easy, but the perception is that things have got much tougher.
The mum of the family I’m spending time with says BFGWs has set Gypsies and Travellers back 30 years in terms of engaging with outsiders. Officials, artists etc will find it difficult to get onto any camps now, she says, and in some quarters Travellers themselves have turned on each other.
I’ve even heard from a friend who works with Irish Travellers in a town in Lancashire that the young lads are now starting to ‘grab’ girls as a form of sexual harrassment after seeing it for the first time on that programme. It hadn’t really been known of before around there.
My feeling is that Firecracker Films have done a hatchet job on a vulnerable and misunderstood community and I think they’ve done untold lasting damage in the chase for ratings. Tabloid TV of the very worst kind.
“There are guys who are rabbits and there are guys who are turtles, I’m a turtle….With the option of having more time you get a different story and a richer story.”
Joseph Rodriguez is one of my favourite photographers and someone I would love to emulate, in terms of his dedication to long-term projects and way of thinking. This is a fab interview with him. Worth your time. I’m definitely a turtle too and am reassured by many of the insights he gives here.