Media Gatherers

Photography has always been used as a means of recording social change. A way of documenting social behaviour or changes in the structure of our societies. It can be used as a rebellion against the establishment or as a means or documenting how one town or village changes over a period of time.

With multimedia, another opportunity is now open to us to cover social change in a way that brings direct contact with the individuals involved in this change. With narrative audio used from those people in the images a more personal link to that change is created.

It enables a story to be ‘humanised’ more, bringing, I believe, the viewer closer to, and offering a more intimate connection with the subject…

With the news today that the Steelmaker Corus has announced that it will end production at its Teesside Cast Products factory, putting 1,700 people out of work I returned to a multimedia piece I produced during a demonstration a couple of months ago in Redcar,  Cleveland.

The demonstration through the streets of Redcar was trying to raise awareness and begin a fight for the survival of the factory following rumours of closure.

A fight that unfortunately, appears to have been lost.

Next time your are producing a multimedia piece try and think about what you are photographing and how, one day, it might become a record of a moment in history, whether on a large or a lesser scale, and the responsibility that should bring with it to do a subject justice.

Hit the link below to watch…

http://www.mediagatherers.com/projects/save-our-steel/