I feel that, although these images technically achieve what I wanted to do, they are not very interesting at all. I didn't feel I could be creative and felt very uneasy being there. Out of the dozen or so people I asked, these two subjects are the only ones that actually said yes when I asked them whether I could take their photograph, and even when they accepted they didn't seem very keen and were extremely wary of managers and permissions. This really put me in a difficult position and it made it all the more unnerving to ask anyone else for a picture. So it seems despite the lateness of my travelling you can't escape the 'red tape' of modern corporations when it comes to the media!
Solutions?
Although I offered every one of my participants a letter explaining my project and what I intended to use the photographs for on headed paper from the university, many people seemed reluctant to have their picture taken. I noticed that mostly, the reason for this was not because they didn't want to, but felt that they would not be allowed to appear in any work of mine due to pressure from the managers and company policies.
One solution could be to phone or write ahead, to obtain permissions to do portraits of staff working for certian roadside companies. However, in practice, for the purposes of my university project work this would not really be feasible, as the relevant managers and directors may take a long time to respond, and even if they do they may decline, which would not be ideal especially considering the deadlines imposed by my course. Although I think this would probably be the only approach that would work if I were to carry out a project similar in the future.
I will not give up though!!
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