Stories

Everyone loves a good story.

Stories are at the heart of our social and cultural heritage. No matter where we’re from, we all grow up listening to stories and passing them on. They’re an intrinsic part of the social landscape; from religious beliefs and dogma to popular culture and art, stories are at the core of human communication. And when it comes to sharing important information, storytelling is one of the most useful and powerful tools we have.

When we share images online we tell stories. We’re sharing our experiences with the world through a visual narrative. For example the images below from a weekend spent sailing with old friends earlier this year. The images combine to offer a short story that describes the experience.

 
 

Many stories follow a tried and tested formula and are intended to inform, educate, or entertain. They often depict journeys as metaphores for transformation or personal development. Not all stories are complete however, just as not all stories carry a responsibility to take a moral stance or make the world a better place. Some are simple tools that deliver a simple message, as in advertising or promotion, and it’s the means of that delivery - the story - that help the message succeed in finding its target. Of course the better the story, the more likely people are to remember it.

The most successful advertising campaigns often rely on comical or emotive narratives in order to engage their audience in this way. Similarly, company websites, marketing and promotional materials, even annual reports or promotional brochures all employ a visual narrative in order to get people’s attention and deliver their message.

Storytelling using stills images can take many forms: it can be a single, compelling image or a series of images taken over a period of time. A small collection of images can be used to showcase a process, a practice, or a product. No matter how simple or complex the narrative, photographic images provide an invaluable means of reaching your target audience.

Stories aren’t necessarily conclusive, they can be open-ended and form a small part of a wider, on-going narrative. For example the images below of skateboarders at the Undercroft at London’s Southbank Center don’t tell the complete story of urban skateboarding subculture; what they do is present a snapshot of that subculture, part of a much wider, on-going narrative.

 
 

Sometimes all it takes is a few images that represent an action or a process. I recently took an antique clock for repair and the small, atmospheric shop was so photogenic that I asked if I could take a few pictures when I came to collect it. The pictures tell a little story about the craftsman in his workshop. These pictures don’t offer a complete story, but there are details in them that provide clues which prompt us to develop our own interpretation.

 
 

Other stories of course carry a much greater responsibility. There is an established tradition of documentary photography which carries an implicit duty to represent its subject matter with honesty and integrity. The stories that I’ve tried to tell through my own work have been made as honestly as possible, with empathy and respect for my subjects.

There are instances where visual storytelling is by necessity more representative than actual documentary. For an awareness campaign highlighting real lived experiences of young people facing issues of homelessness the charity I was working with, CentrePoint hired young models to portray the true stories being depicted, in order to protect the privacy of the people behind them. While the resulting images could be interpreted as less than authentic, they nevertheless communicate a very real truth. Protecting people’s identities in this way shouldn’t detract from their stories.

 
 

As a photographer, my interest has always been in telling stories. Even when I’m taking corporate headshots, making environmental portraits or photographing food or product, I believe there is always an element of storytelling involved. It is, in my opinion, implicit in the very nature of photography.

If you want me to help tell your story, please get in touch.

Housing crisis

There are currently estimated to be 320,000 people in Britain recorded as homeless according to a report released in November 2018 by the housing charity Shelter, an estimate which by their own admission is conservative. Shelter works not only with providing support to rough sleepers but also offers advice, support and legal services to people who are struggling with unsuitable accommodation and bad housing, as well as campaigning to end homelessness altogether.

Their latest report on the housing crisis in the UK shows an increase of 4% on the 2017 figures. That’s equivalent to an additional 36 people being made homeless every day.

Many people think of homelessness simply as people sleeping rough on the streets. Attitudes are often accompanied by assumptions about begging, mental illness, substance abuse, or even that people deliberately choose to live on the streets.

What people don’t generally associate with homelessness are the less obviously noticeable issues caused by bad and inadequate housing, especially in major urban areas like London, where the housing crisis is at its worst. Barely affordable rental prices, coupled with cuts in welfare and a refusal by many private landlords to accept tenants claiming housing benefit have forced many working people, including families with young children in to temporary accommodation. Temporary accommodation which is often unsuitable and ends up being long term.

The fact is, anyone can become homeless and it’s not just an issue that affects the most marginalised in society.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been working with Shelter to photograph people all over the UK who have been affected in one way or another by issues surrounding housing and homelessness. The people I’ve met all had their own stories to tell and have been affected by circumstances which could affect anyone at any time. I met a family with five children living in two rooms in a Travel Lodge. I met single parents living with their children in single rooms. Single parent families facing eviction from the hostel rooms they were living in, facing the prospect of rough sleeping. I met a family with two children who’d slept rough for one night, now living in a single room. A wheelchair user housed by the council in accommodation with too many stairs and no disabled access. These were all people who’d had jobs and stability but whose circumstances had forced them into their current predicaments.

The portraits could be of anyone in your daily life, your neighbours, friends, colleagues, your family. The faces are those of normal, everyday people, like you and me. They’re not incoherent, drunken beggars, they’re people with ordinary lives, with jobs, with families, with dignity.

However, when the media report the issues highlighted by Shelter’s report, they largely rely on lazy stereotypes of homelessness to illustrate the story, preferring to show stock images of anonymous rough sleepers or their tents, instead of the real faces of the people who are affected by this crisis. Perhaps this reflects the difficulty people have in putting a human face to the issue - of empathising with people affected by homelessness. Perhaps it’s easier to dismiss people as anonymous strangers, instead of recognising them as individuals. Among the few media outlets covering the report which didn’t simply use stock imagery were the BBC and the London Evening Standard who actually linked the story to real people. Most others, even the Guardian and the New York Times chose to ignore the personal angle and stuck to statistics, government policy and quotes from politicians and ministers, keeping the personal realities very much at a distance.

This gallery shows some of those people I photographed for Shelter. The point I’m trying to make is that there are real people behind the statistics. Real stories and lives that are affected and they deserve to be acknowledged, not simply reduced to a statistic.