approach to my work at MASH

With the nature of my placement I am having to be cautious in what material I obtain and how I obtain it. I feel responsible for the representation of the women and am being very protective with what material is viewed outside of the center. In one sense this is quite frustrating as there is such a wealth of work that will never be viewed, however I feel it has it's place in MASH and that the work is greatly appreciated.

In terms of collecting images which will be useful for promotion and documentation use outside of MASH I have took an approach which in a way reflects the normality of the place.
The girls come in for a brew or food, to sit and chat and get involved in activities more frequently than what they come in for counseling and nurses appointments. 
In the first few sessions where I chose to go in and get involved with the activities I was shocked by the (mundane) everyday normality of the atmosphere. In many cases it was difficult to distinguish who was a service user, who was a volunteer and who was staff.
Taking the time and using the first few visits as an oppertunity to gain trust and show the service users I wasn't a threat was invaluable and made capturing material over the weeks that followed much easier. It also informed my approach and made a potentially difficult to capture environment a web of photographic activity. I focused mainly on the hands and what was being done rather than attempting to only get the back of heads ect. I feel this has resulted in a consistent set of informative images.

For the editing process i discussed format with staff and in the end we concluded square was a good format for building them onto the website.
I am going to supply all images i feel are appropriate and good quality reflecting my best work, there will be a set in black and white and a colour set as different purposes will require the different kinds of images.

I have arranged to go into MASH the week after hand-in as they have asked with my help in selecting the images for the website (nice request as it shows they have confidence in my abilities)