For our first Photojournalism brief we were asked to to capture an A3 landscape image to illustrate an article titled “Number of Scots Dancing halves in a decade”. The article states that although much of the public tunes into Strictly Come Dancing we aren’t interested in the sport ourselves, despite physical activity being on the rise. In the brief we were told to capture an image that has a strong human element and is off-beat/eye catching.

For this brief I really wasn’t sure what to photograph at all, I had it stuck in my head that because it’s photojournalism it cannot be posed and so must be candid. So I focused on contacting dance classes and studios, across the central belt of Scotland, but unfortunately everyone that did reply said no. I also saw that there was a festival at Archerfield Walled Garden however, when I stumbled on it (Saturday 15/09/18) it had already started and I was concerned about being able to park there (no way to get public transport from where I live), but luckily, there was an 80s Mania event hosted by Lanark Memorial Hall that same night. So I contacted the Memo Manager and asked if I and a colleague could photograph the event in return of some images to them. The manager then contacted the production manager of the show and got back in touch to say we were both welcome to attend.

The show itself was fantastic, and both myself and Sofia got lots of great images. However, we both failed to meet the brief as our images were not off-beat enough. Although, from this I learned that we can pose these images and so I had a better idea of what I could and couldn’t do for future briefs.

The following are the images that I researched before going to the 80s Mania event.

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And my own submitted image:

80s Mania with Border.jpg

With this image I wanted to show the crowd getting involved with the cast and dancing along to show that not only will the public pay to attend a dance show but will also dance along. However, unfortunately I did not meet the brief on this occasion. Fortunately though, Graham gave everyone who did not meet the brief an amnesty on this occassion and so said we didn’t need to reshoot this time.