Born free

As anyone who looks at this blog may know, I've spent some time over the past few months getting to know Sofia, an African lady whose asylum claim was turned down by the Home Office earlier this year. She is currently destitute and survives with the support of charities in Manchester.
I've put together a short piece about her life, which I've now had the go-ahead to show to people and which can be seen by clicking on the picture above.
I'm not quite sure what I'll end up doing with it...asylum is not a subject that the media likes to touch, unless it's to bash asylum seekers. But I would like to find a way to get it 'out there' and seen by people.
It's just one story, obviously, and not necessarily representative of other people's experiences. But I'd like to find a way to expand this into a larger project on asylum and destitution...

murphy's porridge

I'm having computer problems at the moment and am only able to access the internet from my phone. I'm having to take my computer in for a check-up later this week and typically, it has come at a time when I could really do without it. Murphy's Law, my mother would say. Annoying but worse things happen.

Over the coming weeks though I should - all being well - be launching a new, more up-to-date website and blog and putting together pieces on subjects as diverse as gypsies and travellers, fishing and porridge...

Yes, porridge.  

end of the road - Derker

I paid a visit to Derker the other day...an area of Oldham that is undergoing a controversial regeneration process funded by central government.
I last visited the community over two years ago, not long after a public inquiry that was triggered by objections to the council's plans to bulldoze almost 500 homes. Inevitably, the locals lost and the compulsory purchase order (CPO) was granted - clearing the way for demolition. [Actually, I can't actually think of any community that has won at public inquiry under this particular regeneration scheme, which will see the clearance of anything between 100,000 and 400,000 mainly Victorian terraces across the North of England. Hardly surprising considering the authorities have access to the finest solicitors and barristers, whereas homeowners are left to represent themselves, unless someone happens to qualify for Legal Aid].
ANYWAY...some Derker residents challenged the CPO in the high court on various grounds where they believed mistakes had been made. To cut a long story short, they reached the end of the road on Thursday when their case was rejected. They must now start looking for places to move to, but many - especially those who have paid off their mortgages and are now retired and on a fixed income - complain that low compensation payments will put them back in debt, or into social housing. This is a common complaint: why can't we get a house for a house.

Over the past few weeks I've visited eight different communities affected by this kind of regeneration/demolition scheme for a portrait project I aim to have finished by the end of the year. So far they've all been in Liverpool, Manchester/Salford and Oldham but I'm now going to start branching out.
Over the next weeks I'll be travelling to Yorkshire, the east coast and up to the North East to try and move this forward. The intention is to put human faces on some of these stories and to record their own words, as an alternative way of telling the impact of regeneration on people's lives.
There is a problem here though and it's one I'm well aware of. There are winners and losers in every regeneration process, and even within one community there are a variety of viewpoints and experiences. Inevitably, it's the people who aren't happy with the process who I am most aware of - they are the people whose campaigns I've covered or been told about over the past few years. The question of how to go about this in a balanced way and without focusing only on the negative is something that is bothering me...because there are indeed many people who are pleased with how it's worked out for them.
Going to regeneration company press offices for something that is at this moment a personal project - although I'm sure I'll manage to get spin-off stories published - is potentially a problem. I'm not at all sure how to get around this one.

freedom fries

From this






to this....



and finally this...



The good folks at this Salford chippy had a horrible few years when the streets on every side of them became more and more derelict and were finally condemned to demolition. Even once they started bulldozing around them, its owners hung on - first because they were unhappy with the paltry amount they were offered for their business and upstairs flat [one official actually told them it was assumed they would be retiring] and later because no alternative premises had been found for them and fitted out. Now, finally - 15 years after regeneration of their area was announced - they have been given a new shop and are once again getting customers. Winners or losers? I don't think even they are completely sure.

links

I've had a couple of things published today. An audio slideshow on haaf fishing in Cumbria, on the BBC website (click above or see my original - slightly longer version HERE). I've also got a written piece and image in Guardian Education - a profile of an enterprising head teacher who has won an award.

regen

It's been an afternoon of photographing housing regeneration - although some would dispute that phrase - in Liverpool for me today.
I have a tendency to come up with lots of ideas and then spread myself too thinly, with the inevitable effect of getting very little done - or being disappointed with the results. So I'm giving myself between now and Christmas to focus on regeneration, and to hopefully finish something.
Yeah right.

brooklyn, baby

I've just returned from a week's break in New York. It was my first time in the US and I've fallen in love with the city. Can't say I'm too excited about having to return to work...

states of play

I've been a bit lax on the blog lately - mainly because I've been pretty busy but have had relatively little to show for it.

* I've filed quite a few written pieces and/or pictures with various publications - Guardian, Big Issue in the North, Marie Claire and New Start - all of which are still in the pipeline.
* I've had a second audio slideshow bought by the BBC but it's awaiting its big moment in the publishing schedule.
* I've put together another multimedia piece - on this - which I'm pretty pleased with and hope could go somewhere promising in due course....watch this space.
* I've started a simple but hopefully effective little project related to my three-plus years of work on housing regeneration in the north of England, which I aim to have finished by Christmas. A selection of my written work on this subject can be viewed here.
* I'm plotting a further photography project - this time overseas - which, if it happens, I hope to complete gradually over the course of next year.
* And I've set up part of my first assignment for the MA photojournalism course I'm due to start in the New Year and am very excited about what I'm doing.

So it's not as if I've been slacking. Well...just on the blog front then.
I'm now about to sign off for another week and a bit as I'm heading Stateside, for a holiday. I'm also officially hiding from my 30th birthday, which comes to pass later this week.
see you on the other side......

say 'paneer'

(Kolkata, March 2009)

I don't have much to blog about this week. So I'll just post some photos.

next level

I love this series of little multimedia features so very much. If you are interested in this kind of thing and haven't yet checked out the New York Times' One in 8 million series then I urge you to do so. I WISH I had the time and funding to do something like this where I live.

top slacker

I haven't had much time to post this week as it's been quite a busy one.
I returned to the homeless gypsy family I mentioned last week and although it was a more fruitful visit than my previous one I still had a frustrating experience because I was there on someone else's time, she had things to be getting on with and I just couldn't stay as long as I would have chosen to. I know that while I have some decent audio, and therefore potential written interview that the images just don't do their situation justice.
Tonight I'm going to sit in the audience while they broadcast this...such a geek. If I get to ask a question I'll be sure to post a link

EDIT: my question wasn't picked. booo hiss

Appleby fashion

I've spent the past couple of evenings pratting around with my leftover images from Appleby Horse Fair, to see if I could pair them with some audio and video I gathered there as I practice exercise. It's not happening because the audio's so poor. How I wish I'd done my training with duckrabbit a month earlier than I did. Anyway, I certainly intend to return to the horse fair next June if I can, so will do a better job then.
Going back through my images - hundreds of them - reminded me of how fascinated I was with some of the traveller girls and their style. In my mind I couldn't - and still can't - help but juxtapose the images of the horses being washed and prepared for sale, and the girls who doll themselves up and flaunt what they have in the quest to find a husband.
It's a certain kind of style, but I think the fact it was dull, rainy and at times quite cool, certainly made their skimpy outfits and bare, fake-tanned limbs stick out all the more for me.
If I return next year I will make it my mission to take more portraits of these young girls and their amazing attire, and hopefully turn it into a half-decent piece.

housed but not homed

Something I learned through meeting and talking to people at Appleby Horse Fair but didn't fully appreciate before was the fact having a caravan does not stop a gypsy or traveller from being homeless. If a family has no legal stopping place they fall into this category.
Yesterday I met a family who are an extreme example of this. For seven years they have been living along the country lanes in Yorkshire, in appalling conditions - with no electricity, water or toilet facilities. There are complicating factors but in 21st century Britain no one - no matter what - should be let down by the authorities in such a drastic way.
For various reasons, yesterday wasn't a raging audio or visual success. I'll be returning next week and hope to get a fuller feel for their plight.

happy anniversary

It's three years today since I made the decision to go freelance - after finding myself out of a job when my short-lived last newspaper folded.
I don't think I would have considered freelancing so early in my career - two and a half years after qualifying - if I hadn't been forced into it like this. If I'm honest I'm pleasantly surprised that I've lasted this long.
Why is this date - September 19th - etched so deeply in my mind? Because the day we all found ourselves out of a job happened to be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. As it is again today. Ooo arr.

Haaf slideshow

I've had quite a busy week but finally got round to putting together an audio slideshow on my couple of days haaf fishing on the Solway Firth (more pictures HERE). It's amazing how much goes into three minutes of one of these. I'm quite pleased with it...I can feel a progression from my earlier attempts. Now I am going to have to try and place it somewhere...

LRA hit the DRC

More multimedia-related wittering from me over at the duckrabbit blog...

parched

I've written a short post on subtitles v voice-overs - and the talented Sanjit Das - over on the duckrabbit blog

glasgow, innit

I've been in Glasgow with my family this weekend, for my sister's birthday. Loved it...reminded me of Manchester, only more attractive and less rainy.

apples and fairs

A few of my images from Appleby Horse Fair have been used to illustrate a story I've written for this month's New Start magazine, looking at activism within in the travelling community. The piece looks at the work of Jane and Joe Hurn, pictured above, who I got to know over my week there. They are doing some sterling work to try and ensure members of their community in Cheshire and across the country know their rights and are treated fairly by the authorities.
More images from Appleby - the UK's biggest horse fair - can be seen HERE

haaf cut

I've just about dried off after spending a second day photographing the Haaf fishermen of the Solway Firth yesterday. This is the first edit of the images I've collected over two sessions.
I'm hoping to turn this, some audio I've gathered and some other material into a compelling visual piece...just as soon as I get around to it.

Can I get an 'Amen'

I went to church today for the first time - bar weddings and Christenings - since I left home 11 years ago. And today's service, at an African pentecostal church in Manchester, was somewhat different to the grey and sombre Roman Catholic masses of my childhood.
For a start it lasted for four hours, although thankfully, we got there an hour late. But aside from that it was a noisy, joyful affair full of music and dancing in the aisle. Unfortunately my haul of pictures was disappointing as I was told pretty quickly that my camera wasn't allowed. That is a shame, as faith and religion seem to be the key thing that helps asylum seekers like Sofia get through the difficult times. No matter what their background, the ones I've met have all been very religious.
Yesterday we met a Nigerian Muslim lady whose house has been raided by immigration last week and who everyone expects to be deported any day now. She is beside herself with worry but is still keeping her Ramadan fast. That's the norm rather than the exception.
To have that kind of faith must be a wonderful thing.

More on my destitution project:
http://ciaraleeming.blogspot.com/2009/08/love-on-margins.html
http://ciaraleeming.blogspot.com/2009/08/supermarket-sweep.html
http://ciaraleeming.blogspot.com/2009/08/definitely-not-sponger.html
http://ciaraleeming.blogspot.com/2009/06/no-recourse.html

stuck in limbo - slideshow

Elizabeth Pascoe took on the authorities - and lost - when her home was earmarked for demolition under Liverpool's Edge Lane development scheme.
Bill Booth has lived on a half-derelict street in Manchester for a decade and still has no idea if it will survive a regeneration scheme.
Theirs are among up to 400,000 terraced properties across the English North and Midlands which could be bulldozed using public money, under the controversial Housing Market Renewal or Pathfinder scheme.
The government says the communities being targeted are suffering from housing market failure and need intervention. Skeptics say poor communities are being kicked off valuable land which is being handed over to developers.
Launched in 2003, the Pathfinder has met with fierce resistance and legal challenges, general delays and now economic meltdown have led to parts it being scaled back. With a change of government looming, its very survival is now in doubt. For people like Pascoe it is too late - the battle is lost and they must find a new home, often ending up significantly out of pocket in the process.
Where it leaves communities like Booth's is less certain. With more than half the homes in Clayton West boarded up and rotting, no developer on board and now an economy in recession, it is difficult to see a solution.

The sound on this piece is embarrassingly awful but was gathered before I did my audio training course with duckrabbit. I think it gets the story across though.

Love on the margins...

....continuing my project on a destitute asylum seeker living in Manchester. More here, here and here.

supermarket sweep

Weekly supermarket shopping, destitute asylum seeker style. Sofia, like thousands of others across the UK who have been refused asylum but are either from countries deemed too unsafe to return to, or are awaiting removal by the authorities, relies on support from independent charities. Her shopping budget is £10 a week.
These are out-takes from a personal photographic project I am undertaking to document her life, hopefully learning a lot along the way about the reality for people in her situation.
More here and here.

definitely not a sponger

So, today I met again with Sofia, a refused Zimbabwean asylum seeker who is destitute in Manchester....unable to be returned home and with no recourse to public funds (ie benefits, healthcare, housing) but prohibited from working.
Life for someone in her position seems to me to be an endless cycle of catching buses and walking miles in order to do the simplest of things that the rest of us take for granted.
In order to get her £10 a week food voucher (top) from an independent charity, Sofia must travel into the city centre and another three miles or so in another direction, to the little church where the drop-in is held. She can only spend her money in one supermarket chain...needless to say they aren't always near where she has managed to find a sofa or piece of someone's floor to sleep. And £10 doesn't exactly go far...especially when you are suffering from high blood pressure and need a healthy, low cholesterol diet.
Then there is the work involved in running an anti-deportation campaign...collecting signatures wherever you go (picture 2), gathering evidence that you are in danger if you are returned....etc. Yet she is one of the most positive and active people I know...it's inspiring, humbling and every other cliche you care to throw out. I'm hoping to dedicate some serious time to this one over the coming weeks...we shall see. I'm great at ideas and dreams but not always so good when it comes to following through. Luckily for Sofia, she is far less of a flake.