It is personal project which began a year ago. I was in lockdown in England and not allowed to travel to my then “second home” in Wales. During this time I observed many discussions on social media about visitors to our “second” town, as well as Welsh national media highlighting lockdown infringements. The coverage was mostly one-sided and uncomfortable to read. As the year progressed and I travelled to my second home, I was able to gauge the real breadth of feeling from local residents to visitors; though not “local” I am well established in the community here and talk to people on both sides of the divide.
The second part of this year I have been resident here in what is now my only home. My research has continued, capturing media articles and comments, knowing I would probably use the material for assignment 5. I have added to this notes on conversations had, overheard and related. Now I need to research the facts behind the issues, widely around the philosophy of truth in photography, adjust if necessary my personal stance and then develop a visual photographic response to this personal, and socio-political study. I intend to explore layers of truth, something that has interested me increasingly as I have progressed through the documentary course. Though my research has been during the coronavirus year 2020-2021, I don’t intend the work to focus on this; the project highlights local/societal/nationalist issues that exist normally, such as the economy, resources, housing, tourism, and hospitality businesses.
Working title: Tensions arising from visitors.
Theme: Different sides of a story.
Methodology and work flow: Collate social media comments → Research facts/data → Read and research on the philosophy of truths in photography → Reflect/synthesise (decide my stance on the issues) → Photograph visual representation of issues → Chose social media comments and facts to use with images → decide on presentation of images and text and my voice.
Audience: Myself. Depending on the outcome I might release to the community later as a healing tool; currently it would inflame the situation locally.
Approach: A slideshow sharing images with overlaying text either supporting or contradictory to each photograph, a second layer of factual text and a third layer communicating my perspective on issues.
Photography 2: Documentary 