I’ve been involved with Theatre Orchard Project for several years as photographer/designer and as a member of the Board of Trustees but in February 2010 began a 6 month project as Co-ordinator and workshop facilitator with Clodagh Miskelly and Paddy Uglow, on a two-part project with a Digital Storytelling Workshop as the first component and a related mixed-media installation as the other. Continue reading
Author Archives: Liz Milner
‘Eighteen Summers’ – European Digital Storytelling Workshop, Watershed
Digital project it may have been but due to EU funding, multiple paper documents had to be sent back and forth, but that did result in a lovely stamp collection!
What is digital storytelling?
Once upon a time we sat around the fire and told each other stories, now “young or old” we can do it with computers. We call this Digital Storytelling and it’s made possible by the new tools of media production. Daniel Meadows, BBC Capture Wales.
In the early 1990s Joe Lambert and Dana Atchley were experimenting to combine multimedia
and autobiographical performance in a theatre company in Berkeley California, USA.
Explorations about how personal narrative and storytelling could relate to and make use of the
emerging new digital media tools led to the development of the digital storytelling process and
the founding of the Center for Digital Storytelling. Continue reading
Bristol Floating Harbour 200 school photography project
In 2009, Bristol Bristol’s Floating Harbour marked its 200th anniversary with a number events and activities. Local Journeys contributed to these celebrations by working with schools and artists and through them I devised and delivered a photographic project for students on the highly regarded AS Level photography course at St Mary Redcliffe 6th Form college, led by enthusiastic teacher Sharman Jupp. Continue reading
Arts projects – and process
This is another variation on the documenting of artists‘ and performers‘ work, but here instead of completed objects, or performance pieces this is often commissioned to record artists working in school or community settings where there may be no lasting material objects to show. Instead, the outcomes may be an important set of experiences, acquisition of new skills or the discovery of new places. These type of projects are often delivered in a workshop format similar to the photography workshops I run myself. Continue reading
Artists and craftspeople at work
Much of my professional photographic work has been documenting the completed work of artists, craftspeople and performers (eg Portishead’s Public Art Programme) but there were also occasions when images were requested of the maker at work, or of an object under construction so a selection is included here.
Malcolm Martin – wood sculptor
‘Growing Journeys’ project, April – July 2008.
‘Growing Journeys’ – a workshop project using photography, lettuce growing, fire and pancake making, and exploring.
A commission from Ruth Jacobs at the Bristol Hospital for Sick Children to work with the Lumsden Walker Unit, a day psychiatric unit for children with complex mental health needs, to deliver a photographic project that would serve two purposes. First to help build confidence through engaging both children and their parents / carers in a focused activity over a 3 month period and second to provide a set of photographs by the participants for permanent display in the Unit which is located in an old school building (Fairfield) in east Bristol. Close collaboration with, and support from the excellent team of staff at the unit was an essential feature of the project. Continue reading
Thoughts on photography workshops
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera.” Dorothea Lange, photographer, USA 1895 – 1965.
It’s tempting to caption this “boys in the wood – girls in the ‘hood”…
While most of the workshops I deliver, particularly with young people, will include learning about the tool of the camera to acquire a new skill of photography in its own right, the emphasis is more often about developing the observational capacities of the participants, which can help open up a window onto their surroundings – whether it’s a familiar location or somewhere new. Continue reading
Design work
Green Mapping photo project with two east Bristol youth clubs
Photographs taken by young people from Barton Hill and Lawrence Hill, Bristol for the Green Mapping project
In 2005 I was asked to work with young people from youth groups in the Barton Hill and Lawrence Hill areas of Bristol as part of Bristol’s first Green Mapping project – you can see below some of the photographs they took of their home territories. The idea of the workshop was to draw attention to some of the great assets in the area – the Feeder canal and River Avon with much wildlife to commend them, large green spaces, architectural curiosities – and raise awareness in the right quarters of the less attractive or neglected parts and lack of facilities for young people. Continue reading
5. The Woods – ‘Sticks, signs and leaves’
Another facet of the continuing Woods project (see two previous related posts here and here): a book created as part of an MA in Fine Art / Photography at the University of Plymouth, completed in September 2007. The notes below provide some context – the title of the project is a multi-layered play on words, explained in the report produced for the MA – you can contact me if you want to know more! Continue reading
