THURSDAY, 2 JULY, 2020

IMMEDIATE RELEASE. PHOTOS ATTACHED,

Online Photography Gallery Created

An online gallery of creative photography made by members of Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust’s (THAT) Sharing Photographs programme is now live.

Photographer David P Scott was commissioned by THAT to lead the Sharing Photographs programme and the virtual exhibition is hosted on his website. The programme is part of THAT’s ‘creative at a distance’ response to COVID-19.

THAT’s creative programmes are for people with long term conditions (LTC) and are recognised for their contribution to people’s health and wellbeing. In March, in response to COVID-19, the team changed its way of working so it could still engage with participants, especially those who are shielding or self isolating.

The team kept in touch with participants through email, social media, phone calls, text and video conferencing. The creative writing, sing and chat and Sharing Photographs programmes have all proved very popular and successful.

The eight-week programme set participants eight challenges to encourage them to develop their photography skills from taking simple pictures to setting up scenarios to make their chosen image. Participants experimented with lighting, colours, patterns and abstraction in their homes. The results provide a fascinating insight into life under the pandemic lockdown.

Lead artist David P Scott supported all 15 participants through their eight-week adventure. He encouraged each member to produce a range of works exploring various themes and helped them to select six pictures each to feature in the online gallery.

David said, “This was a new way of working for everyone associated with the programme and for many of the participants a new way of using their phones, cameras and email. We weren’t sure how well we would do without supporting people face-to-face but everyone amazed us with how much work they produced and the quality of their engagement.

“Challenges like taking photographs through glass or setting up colour themed still lives produced fascinating and very different results from everyone. I am proud to host the gallery on my website as it’s great to have a single location where everyone can see the range of work that was produced during the programme. We had so much great work to choose from it was difficult to keep it to six images each for gallery.”

Participant Eilish Nairn, who completed every challenge said, “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to do photography just now because I can't go outside but now I know I just needed to concentrate on specifics. It renewed my enjoyment of photography and shows I'm still into my colours, and I was worried about that.”

THAT projects co-ordinator Chris Kelly said, “This programme was part of our early response to COVID-19. A large part of our work is about addressing social and cultural isolation any way we can so we were determined to find a way to continue our programmes.

“The Sharing Photographs programme has been a great lesson to us all about the importance of maintaining contact and support for the LTC community and how they can still flourish in very difficult circumstances. We are so proud of the work they have created and are delighted that we can share this with everyone.”

THAT was set up in 2002 and promotes creative engagement, using a variety of different art forms, as a means of improving the health and well being of participants with a range of long term conditions.

For further information please contact Chris Kelly on 01382 835507 or email ckelly3@nhs.net

Contact:

Lyndsey Daun

NHS Tayside Communications

(01382) 424138

Notes to editors:

Link to website https://davidpscott.com/sharingphotographs/