For anyone of you who hasn’t read my previous Messy Church blog posts I will let you know what it is. It’s run by my local church and aimed at children and their parents. The event is run every six weeks and each session families learn about different stories in the bible through arts and crafts.
I volunteer at the event, I help organise the different tasks and talk to the families. I also take photographs for the event for the use of the church and to develop my portfolio.
I find working as an event photographer at messy church a fun and challenging experience. As part of the brief, it is necessary to delivery photographs which portray the event without obviously giving away young children’s identity.
Although I do shoot traditional portraits at messy church, these are not used by me for my blog or any other online use. This gives me inspiration to treat it a creative problem and come up with alternative ideas. Often the photos are more original and exciting by doing this.
Some of the photographs included in this blog post have quite a vintage style to them. I did minimum Photoshop work on these but I think the attire or the people in these shots give an old fashioned look. I think the colour palette also gives this impression.
This blog post is dedicated to the very abstract photos from the March 2012 event. I had a lot of fun with this theme of photography. I thought my untraditional approach worked quite well, because it added a new element of interest to the more obvious shots.
Often there are a lot of kids running around and I find motion blur is one great way to describe the kind of fun chaos. When experimenting with new ideas, I gain confidence when they turn out well. I would say I am quite an experimental photographer; I like to try out new ideas.
My photography skills have grown through event work for messy church and some themes in my photography have developed. For example, hands are a key element to much of the photographic work I do for messy church.
By taking these kinds of shots, it is possible to get a sense of the people who attend the event without revealing children’s identity. Often shooting children can be a difficult issue, particularly when shots may be used for online purposes. I find it challenging, but in a fun and creative way and it develops my skills in a positive way.
Each time I volunteer at messy church, I find new ideas and inspiration. Topics are picked out for each session and games are designed around this. Themes relate to a variety of religious stories from the bible.
I’ve often noticed they pick one main game for each event and then work in a variety of smaller games around this. This session, the kids were creating cars made out of old boxes and paper plates. This seemed to be the most popular game from the day.
There were lots of photographic opportunities; this blog post incorporates all the activities based shots. For example macro shots of the kid’s art work and other images which give an idea of what games were available.
Often when producing photographs of young children, I’ve found its best to be safe and have not put their faces up on the web. So often I tend to stick to less obvious shots.
For example experimenting with depth of field can be extremely helpful, focusing on an object instead of a face. Even concentrating on arts and crafts materials or the art work the kids have created can be a fun way to express a feeling from the day.
Throughout my work with Messy Church, I’ve included hands as my main subject matter. I have developed this idea through messy church because of how many hands on activities have been offered.
This can also be a fabulous way of including people in your shots, and to describe a little about the person, for example revealing an approximate age.
I like to challenge myself with new projects, so far Messy Church has been a great learning experience for me and I have gained some background knowledge in my photography subjects.
A part of the Noah’s Ark session, an origami project was set. As the leaders set up before the children and parents arrived, myself and others had a bash at making a boat.
At first I was pretty stuck but I managed well and produced one. The leaders worried the boat may be too complex for the kids to make, luckily we had someone to give the children assistance.
The origami boats created a great subject matter for my photography, and developed a series of images with the boats, experimenting also with reflections and depth of field.
I’ve been working as an event photographer for messy church now for over a year or so and it has been a very rewarding experience in lots of ways. Each session has a theme relating to Christianity and I enjoy working with the children and being involved in the activities.
By having a different theme each time, different projects are set, this session was based on Noah’s Ark, involving things like water activities and building a mini ark with nails.
The Vicar, Rachel who organises this event researches projects from the messy church book which I think can be bought in book shops. (Or type it in Amazon for their book range)
I think the events work so well and encourage learning in a fun way, the art activities are all well designed for very young children and it has certainly given me a few ideas for my creative projects and photography work!
