Having already played around with the idea of two sides being ‘Red v Blue’, Theresa May offered me a chance to use the idea in a real general election.
My initial idea of using abstract images didn’t fit the documentary genre that was being covered by this part of the course. However, I now had an opportunity to use my experience of the EU Referendum in 2016 and see if I could produce something new using the same theme. I like the idea of taking of using previous ideas rather than lurching from one subject to another although I am aware that this may attract criticism for being ‘samey’.
I drove round the polling station locations on the weekend prior to the election looking out for election signs and possibilities of compositions with reds and blues. In addition to polling station locations I identified sites where party signs were displayed and noted these as suitable for Thursday’s election.
Rightly or wrongly I didn’t take any practice shots on this visit. My aim was to capture people at polling stations and the locations were empty at the weekend. I had worked at these locations the previous year and was comfortable that I knew them well enough.
Even if I wasn’t going to produce images good enough for the assignment, I wanted to capture the event from a documentary and journalistic point of view. The work is not only about national politics but also about my locality and the impact of national government on my community.
Martyn Rainbird 