I’m quite excited by the concept of a Bigger Society — of people taking more control of their lives and in support the lives of those around them.
Hopefully this will limit waste in supplying social activities and not do too much harm to those who need the help most however is society ready for the supersizing?
After years of the diminishment of mutuals and charities; of less natural volunteering — people used to do things to help their community out without this being organised. Now it seems to require an army of support.
My personal thought is that we need to promote altruism and this needs to come from society as a whole, here are some suggestions:
Freeing parents and carers up to volunteer
Employers to give every employee a day’s paid volunteering
Bosses to be given a reward or recognition for mentoring
National service for the jobless young
Day release for teenage employees
Volunteering accepted as a natural part of unemployment
Pre-retirement volunteering introductions
Tax breaks to professionals for providing services to the voluntary sector
Some form of GiftAid for voluntary work — allowing charitable bodies to claim some tax from those who volunteer for the organisation.
However biggest of all — we need new ideas to demonstrate that taking part in society isn’t about purely being some selfless saint character. Taking part in voluntary activity is good for you — it teaches new skills, opens up new experiences, broadens social circles and gives a huge ‘up’.
How is it so difficult to get this across to people? My feeling is that for so long the populus have been told to think that it’s government’s job to supply these sorts of services — I, for one, would prefer society as a whole to take a firmer control of itself.
People do have time to volunteer and take part in their communities — it’s just about freeing up time. I suspect most people are able to do this, given the support of their family, friends and neighbours. It’s also about exposing people to those opportunities that appeal and effectively reward them.
Trying to leave my brief sojourn into commenting on politicking aside I’d like to use this post to try and get into words my issues with a lot of current amateur fashion / physique / model photography.
This is an area I’ve taken up in the last 18 months or so and really enjoy it — without there are distinct benefits of trying to make really good imagery with someone who has, if nothing else, an interest in being photographed and a willingness to engage with what the photographer is trying to achieve.
However, one of the things I’m realising quite rapidly is just how vaccuous and unengaging many of these types of photos are.
I’m beautiful, look at me. No, just look and stare at my perfect face or ample boobs or my perfect pecs.
Yeah, yawn.
This isn’t great photography — it may be technically — the lighting might be brilliant, the composition precise and the clothes and expression might be just spot on. But it’s devoid of life, excitement or spark. Like german-engineered cars — technically brilliant and a thing of beauty — but lacking in personality and lifeless.
If I were to make one call out to those shooting models these days — and there are more and more of them with the rise of the model/photographer social website — is this: can we have some imagination? Please, can we try to tell a story?
Can we try to move past technically proficient photos — and see photos where you can read a story in them?
Call me mischevious if you want — but I’m a little annoyed that the best the Daily Mail’s PR office could do was to claim the Twitter and Facebook responses to the hideous article by Ms Moir was part of an organised campaign to target the former food writer.
I mean — the amount of effort to go to in an attempt to convince a large audience to react negatively without making the decision for themselves. Well, it’s insane.
It would be far easier to spread a story about a small boy taken away by a balloon… or something similar.
Can they not, for one moment, realise a conclusion that a very large number of individuals were made aware of an article. They read it. And then came to their own conclusion they disliked the tone, inference and content of that article.
And then they got vocal about it.
Worringly of all — some of these people who got vocal and were offended and realised just how hideous the article was weren’t even gay. Even worse some may not have had best friends and relatives who were gay. Some were even just good, everyday folk.
Stephen Fry and his celebrity twittering friends do have a wide reach — but they don’t have an ability to mobilise people without fair reason.
Well, wasn’t it just — and by public life I really mean the bit where the twitterverse and the real world collide.
If you go to the home page of TheGuardian.co.uk today (pictured) there are two stories that probably wouldn’t be there if not for Twitter — and the power the ‘gossiping masses’ now have.
I imagine most of us were blissfully ignorant of Trafigura until earlier this week; when their slightly mis-judging lawyers attempted to stop a newspaper reporting on the goings-on of our government. Maybe sometime back in the 20th century there was a point where this may have covered something up or contained it for a while.
But really — had they not heard of Twitter? Or Facebook? Or… email? Did they really think a big corporate attempting to hush up free press in such a public way wouldn’t cause one or two problems? Whatever they did or didn’t do — I think it was time to PR your way out of it.
And then came yesterday. The lovely Ms Moir of the Daily Mail and her (ill) considered piece on the demise of Stephen Gately. The woman is either very very blind to the modern world. Or she’s got a book coming out.
I’m not going to comment on the article as plentyofotherpeoplehavedoneso. But really, Jan, do you expect us to believe, even for a second that you weren’t aware of the strength of feeling when diatribes are published seemingly against any minority? And did you miss the Trafigura tweetfest? REALLY? And — Daily Mail editors — if you’re to promote a food writer to moral overseer can you please at least have the stomach to stand by material already published or retract it. Changing headlines and pulling advertising just reeks of the lowest behaviour.
The world is changing — the people don’t need to resort to arranged protest or a media campaign to make themselves heard. If you are in the public eye it would do you well to learn this and not to misuse your position by trying to suppress or subvert these views.
And for sanity’s sake — please don’t for one second imagine those of us out here in the real world are so lacking in things to do that we’re sat planning campaigns to bring about the demise of fairly low ranking journos.
Jon Eland is a digital evangelist — employed to deliver truly engaging internal communications at Words&Pictures, truly excited by photographic image-making, chair of the West Yorkshire Photocamp unconference and deployed as the self appointed leader of the Exposure Leeds photography group.
