the homeless of newquay + Lee Jeffries - portraits of the homeless

I have received nearly 200 hits since I posted my photographs from my day spent with the homeless of Newquay, and an overwhelmingly positve response - by my standards at least - from those who viewed it. I have also received quite a bit of attention from those outside my circle of friendship and tutors here at the university. This morning I received an email from a woman who works as a drugs and alcohol officer with homeless people in the Newquay area. She explained to me how a friend emailed the blog post to her from the proverbial grape vine that is Facebook, seeing as she "lives and breathes homelessness". In the email she said that she is interested in working along-side me as I produce an on-going study of these people, which could culminate in exhibiting in the town and media coverage due to the fact she, quote: "knows people". The name BBC Spotlight was even mentioned, which got me fantasizing about all sorts of scenarios at half nine this morning, most of which ended in me becoming a rich and famous photographer... We'll see.

In all seriousness, she sounds like a very dedicated and passionate person. Combined with my passion for photography I believe we could produce something quite special. We will be meeting in Newquay this Saturday discuss her "plan". 

That aside, I am now beginning to think more deeply about how I want to go about creating my documentation of the homeless in Newquay, and where better to start then some good, old fashioned artist research. Below is some examples of work by amateur photographer Lee Jeffries, who has recently been creating a body of work based entirely around portraits of the homeless. So far he has visited London, Manchester, Rome, New York and, with his most recent work, Los Angeles and Miami.

Interestingly, Jeffries is not a professional photographer; by day he is an accountant in Manchester. When first viewing these images I thought that they had been shot on a medium format camera, as the image format would suggest; however, upon viewing his Flickr account, it turned out that they were all shot using a Canon 5D (respect). This means that Jeffries must have cropped his images to appear as though they had been shot medium format - something which I am not a fan of. In fact, I would say that Jeffries' only downfall would be that sometimes his images appear to be almost a little too over-produced, detracting from their raw environment slightly. Nonetheless, this does not belittle the fact that Jeffries has produced some stunningly detailed portraits which capture faces with great character and honesty. More of Jeffries' work can be seen on his Flickr account, here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/16536699@N07/

I especially like the profile portraits.

This has definitely inspired me on the portrait front; Jeffries explained how he always made sure he gave the subjects money as thanks. He also stated - in an interview with The Mail Online - that his main approach was to befriend the people. Unfortunately I think that these portraits alone do not give a sense of assimilation with these people, which is why my plan of action will be slow but sure integration with the homeless of Newquay to capture images which people do not see every day. Of course, part of this process will involve me making portraits of the homeless, but that is all part of the journalistic process of image-making and story-telling. What I want to achieve is a depth of reportage similar to the likes of Larry Towell's The Mennonites, http://www.magnumphotos.com/c.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.BookDetail_VPage&pid=2K7O3R15Q0CW ; Jim Goldberg's Raised by Wolves, http://www.magnumphotos.com/c.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.StoryDetail_VPage&pid=2K7O3R1PAGWR; Eugene Smith's Country Doctor, http://life.time.com/photographers/life-classic-eugene-smiths-country-doctor/#1 and, more recently, Jessica Dimmock's The Ninth Floor, http://www.jessicadimmockphotography.com/projects/the-ninth-floor/.

S

from one to the other...

So, the day for handing in everything that I have done so far since September practical-wise - that's Professional Practice, practical log book and a portfolio of 10x8 prints - has been and gone. And it is safe to say that it was quite an anti-climax. Upon entering the "Assessment Room" - i.e. the Press Room with a new label stuck on the front - we were ordered to place our work on the pile and sign the sheet to make a note of the time (09:16am if you wanted to know). Very high-brow stuff. it was then only a matter of about one hour until we were to be given a new assignment brief, during which time I indulged in a wholesome and nutritional breakfast consisting of a peanut butter sandwich and a pint of coffee. 10:00am, and on to Seminar Room 3 in the Peter Lanyon Building. Following a wrestle with the projector to get it going, we were given our new brief: The Relationship.

Our task, should we chose to accept it  - which we should considering that if we didn't it would probably result in the failing of the course - is to create three more compelling images of three groups of different people who in some way share some kind of relationship. The groups of people can be anything from two or more people in the context of a family (not our own family, I might add), a community or a religious cult - Cornish Association of Satanic Worshippers anyone? A minimum of nine working prints must be ready for review by the Monday 20th February. The project will be shot on 35mm, black and white film and all processing/printing must be done traditionally. 

What immediately sprung to my mind, and indeed everyone's in the room (we were given a swift lecture on the subject) are romantic images from classic reportage work such as Eugene Smith's Country Doctor or Larry Towell's The Mennonites. But seeing as we only have a three week deadline, such complex stories will be difficult to come by. Thus, we are encouraged, as usual, to shoot stories which are achievable and to save the really meaty stuff for later in our degrees. 

So far I have been in contact with a country vicar and a gang of mass-knitting grannys... more on that to come shortly.

S