Photography Project: Stand Out

Good morning/afternoon/evening, I don’t actually know where you are so figured I’d cover all the bases. As lockdown lifts it’s become pretty much impossible for me to do my #lockdownbusiness photography project, so it’s time to start a new one. Prompted by my youngest who does a great job of standing out among their peers, and my friends who always did a similarly good job when we were younger. It’s been an interesting experience and has reminded me of how much I tried to fit in both when I was younger and after I had kids – fearing my unusual look would make it difficult for the kids to make friends. Needn’t have bothered, we still didn’t fit in, but hey ho, what can you do? As Aunt Frances says in Practical Magic, “My darling girl, when are you going to realise that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.” And so we embrace our differences, our lack of “normality” and we remind ourselves that normal is just the data closest to the line of best fit.

I will be compiling a slideshow of these when they’re closer to being complete, but here are the first few images of both those in my Stand Out project.

I’m really looking forward to sharing more of these in future, but first let me explain my choices (and hope they come through to the main blog in the order I put them lol).

1. My family – this image shows the range of personalities and styles just in one family unit, it doesn’t matter if it’s in the street or in the home.
2. Tip Your Hat – this is Xander, he’s been helping me with this project which combines regular street photography with stages shots. Getting people to walk in front of a camera when you want them to is hard work by the way – they always seem more likely to do it if you don’t want them to…
3. Watching – another from Xander, choosing a look that led to quite a few compliments on his purple top hat.
4. Serene – This was taken at the Southampton Lantern festival back at the beginning of the year and this guy just looked so calm, happy, not bothered by anything. In the chaos of everyone bustling about it was very refreshing.
5. Protester – I think this one is self-explanatory. Originally I hated that it had come out grainy – I was still very keen on highly focused and sharped images, but after a time I realised that the impact of the mask is greater because it is so clear compared to the grainy feel of those around them.
6. Police Support – This policeman is supporting the dragon, he loved every moment of this event, also at the Lantern Festival.
7. Cosplayer – Taken in Coventry, a group of anime Cosplayers got together and filmed a lot of TikTok videos. I had permission to photograph them, but as this is the only one I have any right to post photos of, I will let the rest of the group use them as they see fit.
8. Videographer – I was going to call this Cameraman but then I realised that I never saw their face and they may not actually be a man lol, so Videographer it is. They stepped in front of me as I was trying to get the Policeman shot but rather than get annoyed, I took this shot, involving them in my project, albeit passively.

There will be more of these as we step into more and more unusual styles, I am looking for volunteers, so if you live in the UK, let me know, maybe we can add you to my project too.