2007

Police horses, Ronaldo & cans of Tennants.

This project started as a month long photography workshop run by myself and the learning dept at Urbis, Manchester. It’s aim being to teach the men of The Booth Centre, a homeless/dependency drop in, that’s attached to Manchester cathedral, the basics of digital photography. To enable them to portray the city and their place in it.

The title of the work, “Police horses, Ronaldo and cans of tennants” came from the often humorous tales told to us by the men, including an incident when the Manchester United star Ronaldo was spotted by the men and terrified, was cajoled into having his photograph taken complete with a Tennants Extra toast. The aim of the work wasn’t to make judgements, about the men or the issues that they face, (although I’m sure people will) it was simply giving them an opportunity to make images.

I was often surprised at the quality of the work that they produced, (judgments made by me) and the candour with which they revealed themselves. They allowed me to make close-up warts & all portraits of them, and they had strong views on the editing of the photographs that they made. I have stuck to that. This is just a small selection of those pictures, the final work having been displayed in it’s entirety at Urbis, between January and March 2008.
My thanks to, Brian, Paul, John, James, David, Lee, Andy and Stephen.

Mark Page 2008