Wimborne turns on the Christmas lights ☼

The competition winners

This photograph is quite comical in the fact that both the mayor and winner are wearing red outfits with the black components as the whole reason behind the fact that the mayor wears this outfit is to give status and importance within the community and so by having the winner dressed like this, it almost overthrows the whole importance of the Mayor's role.

These 5 photographs are of the competition winners.
The mayor set a competition to the local school's in which was to "Document what you love most about christmas" through a painting in which the mayor and his wife then chose 4 pictures of what they thought were the best for each age group and then the four winner's were invited to come to this event and recieve a congratulatory scroll from the mayor and then they had the priviledge of turning on the Wimborne Christmas lights with the Mayor, town cryer and the scouts.

I was very priviledged to be invited to this event as Wimborne is such a tight-knit community and everyone knows each other, so this was a very special event for me as it's so different to that of Bournemouth and how I was brought up within Bournemouth.
This event also really boosted my confidence within myself and my photography as I went on my own and made my own contacts. Some of my photographs were then used within the Wimborne local newsletter.

Invitation from the Mayor

While carrying out my 'Wimborne in Bloom' investigtion I met the Mayor of Wimborne. He was very interested about my project and the reasoning behind it and so he invited me as a private photographer to take photographs of the 'Turning on of the lights' event in which the whole of the community of Wimborne gather together and start the celebration of christmas. From this my photographs would then be appearing in the wimborne community newsletter as a documentry of this event. 



This photograph above is quite fascinating with the warm hues and tonal ranges within it linking to the warm colours of Christmas. Another element of this photograph that catches your eye is the children who are all looking at something beyond the photograph which almost gives that sense of tension behind it as you don't know what their looking at. Because of the mystery of this photograph I decided to experiment with turning the photograph black and white and changing the brightness and contrast which would bring out the irony of what you cannot see.

I have also lightened the girl's face to the left of the photograph as I thought that this would work well with her being the element of the photograph that you look at first and it helps in balancing the photograph out.

I found that these three photographs worked really well together as they all have a common factor. At least one person within each photo is glancing to the left of the image. As well as this, you then have the colour elements of the photographs in which are all quite similar within the three photographs, with the last two having the dominant red tones and lastly the fact of why the people are all present within this one room. All being there to see the mayor.

I wanted to place the mayor as the second photograph out of the three because of the fact that all other beings are there because of his presence. They are all there to Turn on the lights and be there for the church.

Wimborne in Bloom

A community is not just where you live, it's a place where people support each other, a sense of a friendly neighbourhood and the people and environment around you that make you feel happy, safe and content. It's a sense of belonging and mutual interest.
A community is a place where people come together, work towards common goals and draw strength and identity from their surroundings, beliefs and each other.

These are the factors of which I wanted to capture within the photographs below.

Church atmosphere through the community

While I was looking through artists in which I could become inspired by, I found these rather intriguing photographs of Martin Parr's 'Working men's clubs' series.

The exhibition was one of four commissions for ‘Imaging the City’, in which he responded with his usual documentary style, and gently satirical take.
I found that the images were both an interpretation of Martin Parr's famous personality and an introduction to the modern day men's club.

 "It’s the dancing that I really like," says Parr. "Regardless of age, when those familiar numbers are played, up we all get, shaking our bodies and waving our arms, singing along."

“Our mutual pop history is part of our DNA. Often bands bring their own lighting to dramatise the stage show. With whirling colours and flashing lights, the heady combination of four generations dancing together was, for me, the highlight of this project.”

These photographs, to me, really show signs of a community and the way ours in rapidly developing into an ageing population. I am so intrigued how our elder population get excited and become enjoyable by the simplicities of life such as bingo or having a jig on the dance floor to the familiar songs of their generations.


This theory is something that I would like to explore into and study more about, as well as communicating and interacting with the elder generation through the church atmosphere and the mixing of myself who is from the youths of our community with the elder generations in which is very rare to see.