May – 31 Customers 31 Dreams
Project – One year living in Central London
I decided when moving here to find a few places I like whether it be a coffee shop, cake shop, Chinese restaurant and stick to these. My objective was to meet new people and to get to know them… so I would feel and become part of a local community.
I am lucky in that I have about 6 coffee shops within about a minute from my front door (well maybe 2 minutes for some!). I chose Timberyard in Seven Dials as it was the closest and there was a really great group of staff and mix of customers, including many entrepreneurs setting up or running their own businesses and talking to other entrepreneurs is always an attraction.
So, the mini project was to photograph
- 31 different customers
- Asking them all the same question ‘what is your dream’
- From 31 different nationalities
I was slightly hesitant about setting the last requirement, I thought it might be doable, however it would require quite a bit more effort.
It became apparent very quickly that waiting for people to sit at my table was not going to work… so I went for a direct approach, going up to customers, explaining the project and finding out where they were from. I also tried a new approach by showing them the photographs I had taken and asking them to choose their favourite and if they preferred a different style I would take more. The results were often quite different to what I expected.
All the photographs can be seen with the responses to ‘what is your dream’ on Instagram @jkempphotos
Incase you missed my April blog about Street Entertainers
