Assignment 1 - Emma Powell

I met Emma on the first day we moved in at the university but had begun speaking to her months beforehand over the internet. Emma comes from Birmingham and came here to study advertisement. Upon interviewing Emma, she explained how she always wanted to be a bin man when she was little but turned to advertisement last minute when she applied to university. Emma is an only child living with her mum and dad. She explained that the best time of her life was attending Reading music festival being a huge fan of music she is constantly playing ska and 60's music. Emma's life has been filled with anxiety and panic attacks that she battled throughout her whole school life. Her panic attacks fluctuate and her last one was when starting university. She is a firm believer that herbal medicines will cure her panic attacks and so takes them repeatedly. She is also convinced that the problem she has is genetic and explained "My Nan was a bit weird back in the day and my auntie ran off to Blackpool and left her kids with my mum and turned lesbian" But she feels she will be able to stop her anxiety by baking and cooking as "it's scientifically proven to help!" She said this as she made me gluten free oatcakes with cinnamon and honey. She also explained how she loves to travel visiting spain, portugal, cyprus, germany, france and turkey. I took all this information down to create her online story profile here on my blog, when asking her permission to put up this information she replied with "yeah, don't give a shit." These series of images tell you what shes like, how she copes with stress and tell her story.

Assignment 1 - Stories from Cheltenham - Nicola Barz

To begin this story, I made contacts with Nicola via the internet. This shoot to begin with was quite difficult to nail down to a date as it was clear Nicola was quite apprehensive to allow me into her home to take photos. This is incredibly understandable as it's not everyday you allow a random teenager you have never met come to your home to take photos of you. Nicola was shot, petite build and was a stay at home mum with a baby. her house was bright and held perfect ambient light to get some good portraits. For this shoot I decided to really take control and ask her where to stand, for the portraits and tell her that through out the day I will be following her and taking photos of her as she goes. Our most communications came through her daughter Betsy and in this story it was clear how close the two of them were. Although there were pictures of the father about the house mostly of their wedding, he was barely spoken of. She was careful not to divulge too much information about her life but I knew from her decor and attitude that she was a happy and lively lady. 'I don't know if I am that interesting' she explained. 'I just look after Betsy really.' Here is her daily routine:

This is Nicola Barz

her lively cushions and clothes complimented her bubbly personality

As she spoke of her daughters sleeping patterns, she looked out of the window into her large garden.

It is clear how close the two are.

This shot of her wedding ring whilst she made a cake stood out to me as she barely spoke of any partner the whole time I was there. Her help came entirely from her mother who took little Betsy for a walk when I arrived. It left me wondering that perhaps there was more to her than what meets the eye.

Assignment 1 - Stories from Cheltenham - Helen Stephens

This is Helen Stephens. I knew Helen back in my home, the Isle of Wight, and was thrilled when I bumped into her along Cheltenham high street one morning. She was here visiting her father. She has lived here the greater part of her life. Helen is a single mother of a 15 year old girl, and an 18 year old boy. She has manic depression and a severe nerve and back problem which restricts her everyday movement greatly. I would like to tell you her story through my pictures, as I will do this with others living in cheltenham. I met Helen on an average day for her, bringing chocolates and croissants to, if you like, say a silent thank you for letting me stalk her on her normal day. She spent most of her time sitting in her chair wincing every so often in pain and describing to me her mixture of medication prescribed to her to numb her pain. 'Zapain, diazipam, dihydrocodiene...' the list went on. At first she was frantic describing these pills as I could understand how she felt with my re-occuring back pain also. 'Those doctors just don't understand, being in pain constantly is going to make you fucking depressed' from this she went quite calm as we made tea she sat gazing out the window whilst her friend sat opposite her talking to her about news headlines he seemed to disagree with. Then you will see further on her complete change from this to a happy laughter. The photos I have taken I hope will help communicate how her mood changes.

The establishing portrait will run throughout this assignment in my work, to show you like a headline in a paper, what the story is about.

She relaxed in her chair as her friend talked about his views.

Her son Kabe came home from college and sat directly opposite her and began to 'banter' both her and myself, explaining it was awkward with a camera in the room, I found it quite fun.

This shot of the living room I liked. It's cluttered state I could relate to.

After cracking a not so funny, quite serious joke about her back and depression being interlinked, she laughed with a degree of pain.

Stow Gypsy Horse Fair

This was a STRANGE experience. Something I enjoyed none the less. I have always been interested in the way travelers live and have been interested in their values and life style for quite some time. You got the nice ones, you got the nasty ones, but all in all, they all made good photo opportunities. After the hour long bus journey to stow, and the frantic panic buy of some wellies for the trek around the fields, we all got some good shots to take home. Here are a few of mine:

'Hang on love, let me put my sun glasses on so I look extra posh'

Sheila, Elsley and Sharon

Overly friendly red bull guzzlers

charming young gents