When I first started to engage others with my project, by reaching out via social media, the initial direction I took was one of a participatory one. I aimed to collate shared experiences from each participant to then create a body of work illustrating a sense of used space. However after talking to a number of participants it soon became clear that each had a unique view point and story to tell. With the relaxing of lock down I have been able to meet a number of participants face to face. For these meetings I have had the participant choose date, time and location with minimal input from myself. As a result the participant became at ease much more quickly and discourse flowed my freely.

Although this is not totally collaborative due to the questioning I used to prompt and steer the conversation. However, by giving participants freedom to choose the objects, places and spaces that hold an emotional attachment for them, I hope to make my project more of a shared collaborative experience.

This image of Ben Brain was taken outside of Bath Abbey. Whilst the location was chosen by Ben as a place of importance, I wanted to concentrate on capturing the emotions presented by Ben when discussing his space at home, working with a prime lens and shallow depth of field the location becomes secondary. The next stage will be to create images of the space he talks about.