Before going to the Jesus Centre I have looked into what they offer people on their website: http://jesuscentre.org.uk/coventry-jesus-centre. They offer 'friendship and help to all regardless of their faith or lack of it.' And their services include 'support groups and skills classes as well as a small community cafe, and a drop-in for those in vulnerable accommodation or other particular need.'
They have a small on-sight chapel which is available for quite reflection and prayer, as well as providing free access to computers and WIFI which is essential these days for anyone wanting most jobs. The community cafe they run also puts on free breakfasts and meals for homeless people everyday of the week, which is an incredible thing to supply those he need it the most.
The Coventry Jesus Centre is part of the Jesus Army Charitable Trust and is supported through the Heartcry Appeal. The centre in Coventry is part of four Jesus Centre's in the country, but they are hoping to build more soon.
To start the shoot I began photographing what I saw in the food preparation room, this room was bigger than the Willenhall food bank room which allowed me to be a bit more creative with my compositions. Also because I was using a wide angle lens, I was able to fit more in the frame.
The light in this image works well to highlight all the tins of fish, which they had a lot of. Unfortunately, they had more fish than they did other tinned food which as they explained was difficult when the clients said they don't like fish.
They put this trolley in the waiting room, so any of the clients who didn't mind out of date food were able to take as much as they wanted. I thought this was better than just throwing the food away which could be eaten by someone.
This image reminded me a lot of Luisa Whitton's work, and shows the empty/lonely waiting rooms with only very few human aspects too them. I thought the biscuits were put on the table to welcome the client into what is quite a depressing place to be due to the fact they need food to be supplied to them.
I prefer this image compared to the one above because I have composed the image from further away, which creates more dead space between the tables making the room look even more cold and depressing than before. This is unusual because the food bank provides such a great service to people which obviously creates happiness, but they client has to wait in these dull and dingy waiting rooms to receive it.
The last food bank shoot I did and looking into Luisa Whitton's project has made me look around the room at shoots to make sure I don't miss out on the small details like this photograph above. There are little reminders like this dotted around the centre to remind you that it is all connected to religion, and that these are not government funded projects, so they rely fully on donations.
There was a varied amount of supplies when they started, food like rice and pasta are always stocked but they don't have much milk or juice which means that the clients won't receive it. The wide angle lens distorts the image round the sides, which makes it look like there is more food than the reality though which isn't a good affect.
There were more helpers at this food bank compared to the rest, which meant there was less room for preparing the bags of food and things got cute confusing. Luckily they had lots of 'Bags for life', which are stronger than normal plastic bags meaning it was easier for the clients to carry them. I also like how the 'bags for life' connect with the project supporting peoples life.
Again, like the last food bank, because they rely on donations the volunteers have to make lots of substitutions for different foods which means there is a lot of time spent discussing what they could give the client instead.
The volunteers worked in pairs, with one calling out what they needed and the other one got everything together. Most of the volunteers are elderly and heard about it through their church.
I like this image compared to most of the other candid documentary style images I have taken, because in each layer of the image there is something new going on, all they way to the back of the image which creates nice organised movement throughout.
This was the first photograph that I took of the form that the client bring has to fill out and bring into the food bank before being allowed their food supplies. He allowed me to photograph this, which shows the questions which the clients are asked when they come in. These include, why they are in a crisis situation which he answered 'homeless', and it also asked them to pick which they would prefer between rice or pasta and tea or coffee. This image again connects the different sections of my projects together.
This photograph is again inspired by Whitton's project which I researched in my last post. It shows the viewer the food preparation room, which is nicely highlighted by the natural light coming through the widow. The dark rooms are difficult to photograph properly because not much light enter the rooms, meaning I have to lower my shutter speed and use lower f/stop numbers.
This is another view of the preparation room in which the volunteers get the clients food bags ready. I think like Whitton's photographs, these rooms look quite eery and unnatural when there isn't any people photographed in them. There are a lot of human factors captured in the room, but the images don't feel like there is much life in them.
I like this image more than the one above due to being able to use the natural light coming through the window, which meant I could expose the image more naturally and the food and room are highlighted in a soft/ comforting way instead of harsh flat light.
At the last shoot in the Willenhall food bank, I photographed the different sheets people get depending on how many people they have to provide food for, with each sheet and circumstances changing the amount of food the client receives. But some of the last photographs I took weren't clear enough to see what amount of food each group receive, so I decided to take the photographs again but making sure they were clear enough to see exactly what the different grouped clients receive. These images remind me of the instruction manuals and drawings Whitton photographed for her project on Robots.
Gina was very friendly helper which I think I have managed to capture in her portrait. I think the positioning of the portrait is also very suitable for her personality because its bright and colourful. I needed to place her next to a window because the room was very dark, and I wanted to get enough light onto the subject.
I really like this portrait of Kieran because he looks very natural and comfortable in the image, and he stands out from the background well due to his blue clothes compared to the pale background. Also I took the image in the food prep room, so the viewer sees a bit of context of what he's doing in the room without having to look at the other pictures.
I don't think this portrait is as good as the ones above, because the colours are more dim and not as vibrant and I also think that where I positioned him gives no reference to what he's doing. For my next shoot I need to remember to position the subjects in positions which give reference to where they are/ what they are doing.
This image has the same problem as the one above, I think that its a nice portrait of Anne but it doesn't give the viewer any context or reference to what she is volunteering for which means it could just be a portrait of anyone standing in a room. Also I think the background is a bit cluttered meaning she blends into it too much.
I think this portrait is one of my favourites from the shoot because I have positioned Julie in the food preparation room, which means the viewer can see the boxes of food in the background and also she stands out from background due to the contrasting red colour and the highlights from the natural light. I think I could have composed the image from a bit further away to give the viewer even more context and information to look at, but I will have to remember than and use it as a development for my next shoot.
In the end about 20-30 clients came to the Coventry Jesus Centre for food support on the day that I photographed the centre. This was larger then the Willenhall food bank, which could be because this food bank is situated in town instead of on the edge which means its easier to travel to for many different people around the city.
Part of the difficulties from this shoot and the last is with the lack of natural light, meaning I have to make do with what I've got. Most of the rooms are dark and lit through man made lights which makes it difficult to photograph the subjects properly, specially if they are moving because I have to lower my shutter speed to capture enough light but this increases the chance of blurring. What I tried to do for the portraits I took, was to position the volunteers next to windows and natural light to allow better highlights when taking the photographs.
For my next shoot I need to remember to position my subjects for portraits in places where the viewer can see what the reason is of them being there in the background or in the foreground. This means that the portrait will still be a good image even when you don't view it as a series because the viewer can see everything they need to see in one image. Also as development, I should sometimes think about composing my image from further away to help give the viewer more visual information to look at.
I think this shoot did go well and I used Luisa Whitton's techniques to help me document what it is like at these food banks which worked very well, and I will be using the techniques I learnt of her in the future shoots. Such as doing wide angle interior photo's without anyone in them. I also think that the images which worked the best were the portraits, close ups and wide angle room interiors instead of the candid action shots that I have been taking, which is a development that I should take to the next shoot.