Summer Projects

MERCY SHIP, LIBERIA – http://www.mercyships.org/home

I first came across the Mercy ships through Charity Water. Scott Harrison had spent 8 months working as a photojournalist on the ships before being moved to set up his own charity building wells, firstly in Liberia and now globally. Last year we had discussed my going out to Liberia to photograph their work with the wells but for one reason and another it wasn’t possible at that time. I then then came across the Mercy Ships again a month or so ago when I met John Major at a lunch and it turned out he is the patron of the ships. He promised he would help me get in touch with the right people when if I wanted to do a project with them. I wrote to him immediately and am still waiting to here back….in the mean time I have contacted them directly and am also waiting to hear.

Mercy Ships are the largest hospital ships in the world. Africa Mercy which is based in Monrovia, Liberia has 6 operating theaters and wards that can house up to 500 patients. Its function is three fold, firstly they provide medical care and operative procedure to thousands of people who don’t have access to any medical facilities. Tumors, accidents, clef pallets, cataracts, the list is long. The volunteers on the ship go out to the local communities and assess those with the most pressing needs. The ships also provides training to local medical care practitioners and they work with the local communities to provide improved sanitation and clean water facilities.

Ideally I would spent up to a month on the ship, I have two friends, one a writer the other a sound guy who are both really interested in this project so maybe there will be a chance of collaborating….I would see this ideally as a multmedia piece – interviewing the surgeons and other volenteers about their motivations, following patients from their operations back to their communities and spending some time in the villages. This would also tie in really well with the wells (a large proportion of the people on the ship are there due to water born disesases, parasites etc) which I could do as a shoot off or as a second chapter later on. In the mean time I need to get access so will carry on working towards that.

PLAN B – LONDON AMBULANCE SERVICE

I made contact with an Emergency Care Practioner (ECP – they drive the ambulance cars rather than the ambulances and are like a rapid response unit – they also work individually rather than in teams) in the first term to photograph her for our work assignments. It took a while to get access and the permissions and then I hurt my leg so I only finally met up with her yesterday for the first time. I am now penned in to spend 6 days with her out in the vehicle and I also have access to the ambulance HQ. I think there is definitly potential here to make this into a major project should I don’t get the required access to make Plan A work….however I think that getting access to other aspects of the service would also be important…..the ambulance vehicles (they also have ambulance choppers), A&E etc….my main concern about this project is how to make it visually as interesting as possible….its going to be very reactionary and I don’t just want it to be a sequence of images of Lysa holding patients hands sitting on their sofa….I am out with her next Wednesday for a 12 hours shift so once I have done 1 day I think I will have a better idea of the visual potential. I will definitely be taking a voice recorder and interviewing her/recording her there is always the option to use this work either for my 2nd term assignment or the sound assignment. I am guessing getting everyone to sign model release is a good idea as well?

OTHER PLANS

PARALYMPIC SWIMMERS – I started out looking to photograph the paralympic swimmers in the run up to the Beijing Games in September. Unfortunately I think I needed to have started this process six months ago. The deadline for press passes for Games is long gone and getting access to the athletes at this short notice has been really hard and I havent’ been able to get beyond the press officers. I was really interested in doing some underwater photography a la Adam Pretty! Now he is good!

WALTHAMSTOW DOGS – the Racing Stadium has been sold to developers and the track will be closed middle of August. This could be interesting in that apparently (i haven’t been there yet) but it is an Art deco building which visually is supposed to be very arresting…it has some action – I love shots of dogs racing, and there should be some good stories of people who have spent many years working there – and then of course they will be demolishing it in August and building houses – a medium term project but is it what I wont to do for my major project?

MOUNTAIN RESCUE – the summer version…might save it for winter next year!

In the mean time I have a Final Cut Pro bolt on to do and I have hopefully organised work experience at Getty Reportage (just waiting dates to be confirmed) so I have to focus on these things whilst I work on making progress with major project….

Any feedback on these ideas VERY welcome! Thanks!

~ by cgapper on July 1, 2008.