Finding My Photo Mojo - The 100 Project

As 2015 arrived I found myself in a rut and wasn't enjoying photography after coming back to it from several years of a break. Now to say I like photography is an understatement, I LOVE IT, all of it the good and the bad, all different types, but I found that I like people.....seeing how they interact or not with each other and how society bounces about. For this reason I decided that as my Mojo had gone on an extended holiday....destination unknown, I'd go find it and bring it back and the route was via The 100 Project.

This was an exercise in convergence. A self project to challenge me to push forward where I have to engage with the subjects whom I meet for only a couple of minutes. This entailed gathering a collection of street portraits of individuals on the street whom I saw and had something different, striking, out of the ordinary or of interest to me. All are taken in the area that our meeting took place and consent is given by the individual. No names or details are sought and each portrait was given only a number.

The interesting thing I found out about this process is that to take 100 pictures of people when they 'aint aware of you is easy. To gain the confidence to go up and speak to them is the really hard part. I missed a load of opportunities because I was too damn scared to speak to them, and for this I am sad that there were opportunities lost.

Interestingly the great people of Belfast (for whom I am eternally grateful) are a great bunch who can communicate a message very well.

What I mean is that statistically, from my experience, for every Belfastian I got permission from, for every 3 others asked they indicated that they 'didn't want there photo taken' and on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being very polite and 10 being the rudest/choicest language imaginable) I was told no thank you. So in essence I had to ask around 400 people just to get the project complete.

Some of the people I met along the way and found out a little of their lives were homeless, priests, students, hotel and shop staff, MODS, chefs, single, married, old, young, black, white, oriental....oh and a tree sprite!

The images below are the beginning and the conclusion, 1 to 100 = Mojo Found! Have a look at the complete set in Galleries on the website http://spudtait1066.wixsite.com/spudtait-photography