Reporter project

Over the christmas holiday period we were asked to find and document a club. We had to do reportage work. Like a visual journalist on location. We were asked to produce 30/40 site based images and 10 A3 images.

The club we chose had to be local to where we would be over the holidays. I was going home to Nottingham so needed to find something there.

I decided to look for a club for old people. I originally looked for an old mans chess club or similar but I couldn't find anything suitable. I came across Kindred Spirits (part of Age Concern) on a 'club' website. Kindred Spirits aims to bring lonely people aged over 60 together. The members choose what events they want to go to etc. I emailed the club co-ordinator and eventually we made plans for when I could visit them.

The first day I went to their christmas party where they had a dinner, dance and carols. I sat in a corner and watched, drew, took photos, wrote things I could hear etc. The second day I went to the head office where a few of the members went for mince pies and carols. This was all the co-ordinator and I had planned but as some of the members were leaving, a lady called Mo came and asked me and my friend along to an unnoficial meet on christmas eve. We went to a local cafe on christmas eve and as it wasn't official it was really nice and relaxed and I felt I could talk to them more.

On the second and third days I asked a few members to draw me a picture. Ian drew a picture of me and Constance drew a picture of a house. It was nice to talk to them more and interact with them like this.

My main approach to the project was to show the members in my work rather than aspects about the club itself. I did this because without the members, the club wouldn’t exist, they are the club.

For my 10 A3 images, I decided to layer them to show the members and show the club. I drew a different member on different sheets of acetate or tracing paper. When the images are apart it shows the space around them and shows the loneliness a few of them spoke to me about. When they are put together it shows them as a club and how it brings them all together. The images weren’t as good as the originals as I had to copy them. This lost the quality of line but it showed my idea.