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‘Food of Life’ photography exhibition project – St Albans District 2010

In January 2010 I was given a part time role of Arts facilitator for St Albans Arts, Sport and Health (SAASH) the arts team provided by St Albans City & District Council.

My project brief was simple – to contact as many of St Albans’ independent eateries as possible and to encourage staff to take photographs of the 'goings on' of their establishments and submit them to me for an exhibition as an insight into their life providing food for the district’s residents and visitors alike.

A Press release went out, published in both local papers and on the web and I had 3 enquiries in the first month.. eek !  Time to do things fast in the traditional way, meet folk face to face.  Someone had joked to me that there were more estate agents in St Albans than eateries but not these days. St Albans has a vast range of food establishments and they are all so busy trying to provide what they do best in these “recession” hit days. I have friends in the restaurant business and already appreciate how hard everyone works to keep their business in business! I’m no salesman nor was I offering prizes or a financial incentive to take part. This project was an opportunity to give their customers a small insight into their life with food.

To cut a long story short we have 20 establishments contributing with over 50 photographs chosen by a select panel for the exhibition spread across 3 venues in St Albans.

Some of the photographs were taken with disposable black and white or colour cameras provided and some were taken on owners’ own digital cameras. Where the pictures submitted were not quite up to the resolution required for printing I have used a little artistic licence in producing them but other than that I have merely cropped/adjusted and framed for the final result.

I believe all the photographs in the exhibition tell a story, be it illustrative, artistic or amusing.  They are a small insight into the life of food providers in St Albans district - and that was what the project was all about.

My sincere thanks go to all the owners and staff of the restaurants, cafes and take-aways for taking time out in their busy lives to contribute to this project. I hope you agree that it was worth the effort.

I would also like to thank Grae Wall (SAASH) for sharing his shoe leather in the quest to enable everyone’s photographs to be displayed here.

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