The high-quality wall or desktop calendar, which will make a perfect Christmas present, features images from photographers contacted through a range of London homeless charities, including Crisis and St Mungo’s. All the images were taken on 100 Fujifilm single-use cameras, with the theme of the project being “My London.” As the organisers explain, “this is not a project about what homelessness looks like – it’s about what the photographers love about London.”
Training on using the cameras was given by members of the RPS, and 88 of the cameras were returned. The 20 images for the MyLondon calendar were then chosen by a varied jury, comprising professional photographers, representatives of the homelessness sector and other interested parties, including AP’s co-features editor, Ailsa McWhinnie. AP’s connections with Cafe Art go back to the time of Chris Cheesman, our late news editor, who was a passionate supporter of this calendar project and more. Chris would also have roundly applauded another calendar contributor, Mohamad Hasan, who won an award named after him, and got his image on the calendar cover.
The 2020 MyLondon calendars will be officially launched in September, but you can pledge your support on the Kickstarter page and be sure of getting your copy now. “We will use the profits from the Kickstarter campaign to pay for the printing and postage of the rewards.” Cafe Art added. “More than 50% of the profits from the photo rewards will go to the individual photographers.”
The last word goes to one of the featured photographers, Peter Nathan. “Homelessness is not an easy thing. We’re people – with talents, with abilities, and it’s places like this that lets the world out there know that you may have forgotten us but there are still people who haven’t. So hats off to this organisation for what they do.”
