The Story behind the Portrait

This portrait came about through a project I was working on with a group of young people who attend the Youth Group at The Beechtree Community Centre in the rural town of Whitchurch, which lies just 2 miles from the Welsh border in northern Shropshire.

The project was a collaboration with Jamie, Rowan, Kelsey, Robyn, Matthew, Noah, Dylan and me. Through conversation, exploration and play we worked together to create a project about their lives and what their experiences were like of growing up in a rural town.

The portrait is part of a series of collaborative photographs created by the group. They worked democratically (and sometimes not so democratically!) together to photograph each other in places that were important to them. These places of importance ranged from the several local parks where they could be independent and of course the chip shop!

The young people also documented their home lives, relationships with friends and landscape of the area through the use of disposable cameras. The photographs that were made by the group were presented as an exhibition at the community centre, you can also see a selection of the photographs made on the @WittyPhotographers Instagram page.

Within my work, I am interested in the relationship between the photographer and participant, and questioning the role of the photographer, who has agency? Who has power? Who is telling whose story?

I try to aim to balance the power dynamics between photographer/artist and participant. This project is probably the closest I have come to achieving those ideals with the young people contributing and being equal decision makers in the research, making and exhibition of the work.

The project was for GRAIN Projects and in partnership with The Hive, Shrewsbury and supported by Labyrinth Photographic and Arts Council England.