Initial Proposal

Matt Smith – Professional Frameworks Proposal

For this project I have decided to follow my interesting in documentary photography and working with people. This is where my interesting lie and I enjoy working with people because it’s an easy subject for people to relate to and yet there is such a broad spectrum of things to focus on. I was initially undecided on what to focus in on and after considering street photography I decided to go completely to the other end of the spectrum. I didn’t want to photograph strangers in public places as I’ve done this in the past and although I enjoyed the results it felt a bit hit and miss and with such a short time to execute the project I want to have a specific subject to focus on.

I have decided to combine my own interests of motorsport and photography to document the modified car and race community. There is often a lot of stigma around young drivers and people interested in cars and they are often branded as ‘racers’ because they are passionate about cars, how they work and in there eyes they are forever modifying them to become unique works of art. I am going to focus on the modified car community around the north west of England. There are regular evenings of meets where people converse with friends and show there cars off and generally just enjoy their passion with people interested in a similar subject. I aim to document these adventures and the people who partake in the past time and I hope to finish wish a series of images showing why people are so passionate about the modified car scene.

I will be following a small group of friends on there day to day car related adventures to hopefully show that like any other hobby there is nothing sinister about young people having an interest in motorsports. I will create a series of portraits of people within the group as well as candid shots on the fly. I have had a few initial ideas about the styles of shot’s I’m after but I will continue to research into documentary photography and the subject matter before going out for my initial shoots. I am very much at the mercy of the car community as meets are sporadic and sometimes very last minute, this could limit my content but I can work around this by looking for planned events in the coming weeks and attending them as well as speaking with people about organising photo shoots with there cars.

My overall outcome will be a series of photographs somewhere around the region of 8 images showing the ‘real’ modified car community. People who are genuinely interested in there cars and take pride in them, people who work daily to fund there hobby and take every opportunity to meet with friends and share there interests.  I will specifically be focusing on young drivers aged 25 or under, as statistically young male drivers are the most likely to be involved in an accident. This statistic has lead to many people who are interested in motorsport from a young age being branded ‘boy racers’ when in fact this is often not the case. I aim to try and communicate this through my photos by showing the lengths people go to for their hobby and that there is a large community of like minded people who are cast in the shadows because of bad publicity.