Wales
A couple of weeks back I talked Lisa into an impromptu trip to Wales so I could get a couple of days to shoot food banks in a different part of the country. So, here I am. Two days in and I have collected views of another 18 locations and although today is a day we are going to do a little sight seeing, I am of course going to try and shoot a couple more locations.
The last couple of day I have spoke to quite a few people. One guy helped me locate some places in Wrexham, and also spoke to how much busier things have gotten since Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynold’s bought Wrexham football club. Like me he is not a fan of football, but he can see the positive change to the town he lives in. Despite not liking football he did admit to going to some of the games and said the atmosphere was amazing! I ended up giving him a lift into the town where he was meeting one of the kids he works with as a youth worker. He also gave me a loaf of bread that he had bought to donate to the Salvation Army food bank location I was going to. I must admit I completely forgot to give this at the time, but I did remember the next day and handed it in to the Ruthin food bank.
As I was shooting the Kings Storehouse in Rhyl, a man pulling into the car park asked what I was doing so I gave him the story of how it began and what I was doing. I also needed to use the toilet and he was kind enough to let me in the building. Inside, there were a couple of function rooms, and there was a wheelie cart with between 4-6 bags of food. He said this was a typical food parcel they hand out. Not the usual thing I would take a picture of on this project but I got some shots of it before going. He also showed me the storage area where they kept the food. He asked me if I had got any of the other food banks in Rhyl and I said when I googled this was the only one listed. It turned out there were another five. Two quite nearby that he gave me the names of. Rhyl is not a big place, but is home to six food banks. Six! I have already resigned myself to not being able to capture all of these locations in the UK but that point really hit home when finding out there were another five in this small town alone that were not listed online.
This meeting has gotten me thinking about the project on the whole. I know things will change as I carry on and I am just going to see where the project takes me. Do I start collecting details of the locations as opposed to a picture of the full location? Something that has already happened along the way, like in some of the Hastings locations, or Banbury. Do I start taking these shots in black and white as a way to differentiate them from images on Google already or on Streetview? Do I start looking at found images of the locations when I get to a certain point? As I continue this journey I’m sure something will happen, and I hope you can join me on this journey!
Luke
