Visual Narratives - Visual Journalist

My initial thoughts on this brief were 'this is perfect'. I love this kind of brief; broad, engaging, interesting and research driven. I love the idea of getting a subject and immersing in it, researching it and going out into the world and responding and collecting and documenting and generating stories. Journalism is something I have always been interested in and keen to develop my abilities and experience in and I am very excited for this opportunity to do so.

My 3 words:

• Evolution
• Folklore
• Consumption 

I thought they all have possibility but being interested in environmental issues, especially as of late, I chose consumption in the hope of pursuing an interesting and important subject. 

Consumption is a very broad term. It takes many forms throughout our day to day lives, from the food we eat, to the products we buy and the media we consume, all of which could produce interesting material for this project. I decided to focus on the consumption of energy and resources in the supply of our over consumption of commodities, such as electricity. Although despite this, I am still open to other areas of consumption and topics within this subject should they arise in my research process to further pursue.

Thinking of a field trip destination, coal mines came to mind and also Drax power station. With the main aim of making a journey without consuming any resources, I settled on cycling to Drax to check it out. I have researched more about the plant and they do seem to make an effort to be environmentally conscious and reduce their impact as best possible, however they are still creating and investing in a negative impact on the earth.

My plan is to make the journey with a consideration for the difference between such a means of travel versus travel by means which consume resources. I plan on recording every electricity pylon i pass, through photographs and drawings. I want to also record every train that enters and exits the station for the duration of time that I spend there as that is the way coal and fuel are transported to it. I would love to talk to residences or locals around Drax, to find out their views on the station and maybe the close by coal mines too, as well as their overall opinions on the consumption of resources and energy and fossil fuels on their doorsteps. I hope to bring back ephemera relating to the plant, but have yet to figure out what form that could take.