After all the reading I have been doing of late, I have been reflecting upon the focus of my Major Project for my OCA course. At the start of my course, when I first introduced the idea of doing my project on 'Workers', my tutor said that I may need to refine it, and he was undoubtedly right. This has been reiterated in the advice I received during my portfolio review, and was a major theme coming out of David Hurn's book - the need to be specific, with strong subject matter.
I have, therefore, refined my project to specifically focus on workers in uniform, particularly those that give of themselves for the greater good of others, such as in the Armed Services, the Fire Service and the NHS. Through the images I want to explore the work they do, and the conditions they find themselves in at times - sometimes cramped, cold and uncomfortable and at other times dangerous and/or immensely stressful. I have already started the project with a look at the RAF Regiment training for a deployment to Afghanistan, and also a brief glimpse into the lives of the Royal Gurkha Regiment in Kandahar. These images will form the basis of my next assignment, which will be followed up with work on Fire Fighters, Nurses and the Lifeboat Service.
An example image from this project is shown above, depicting a young airman (19 years old) trying to operate in the back of an armoured vehicle, during an Exercise in which the team were training to patrol against the ever-present threat of suicide bombers in Afghanistan.
