Working with the newly formed Black Equity Organisation (BEO)
I'm so proud to have helped support the newly launched 'Black Equity Organisation' by producing the photography for their new website, their social media platforms alongside their marketing purposes. And I'm thrilled to see the amount of attention the organisation are receiving on its launch week.
It's Fantastic!
Yesterday(May 25th 2022) was an amazing day as they launch into the public domain. It's been so very gratifying for me to be included in a small part of such an inspiring and passionate team of people.
For the past few months I have travelled up and down the country, from North to South, East to West, photographing everyday black people to include in a data bank of images for the BEO.
We found it impossible to find the right images that represent the black British community, the images where either too glossy and unrealistic or too American in their look and style.
So we,Yasmin Boaite,the BEO’s digital communications office, and I set off a small UK road trip that would see us travelling to Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, Liverpool, London and Ipswich in the East Anglia. Brighton was also another one of our stops, but the timing didn't work out for us.
But even before we could even set off on our journey, we needed to drum up enough support from the community nationwide. So I put this ad into Facebook and hoped for the best
Facebook Ad for assistance in the BEO project
I’m happy to say that the word started to spread, the Facebook post was shared over and over again, resulting in us being oversubscribe, expect for the Birmingham area, where we didn’t managed to gather enough interest to make travelling there worth while. But we did get a really good response from Brighton and Ipswich which was a real pleasant surprise for us, indeed we had to arrange two shoot days in Ipswich, my home town, to fit everyone in. The response to the call-out was wonderful, and really helped in us fulfilling the brief which we were tasked with.
We were also under very tight time constrains, so had to organise locations and venues, produce, shoot and process all the best images within 4 weeks. I think I shot around 10,000 images for this campaign using my favourite Nikon camera body D850 and two lenses, my Nikon 24mm to 70mm F2.8 and my Sigma F1.4 50mm Art lens which is as sharp as they come. Although nearer the end of the assignment I use my new Fujifilm XPro3 with the most amazing 50mm F1 super lens also from Fujifilm, I love this lens and camera combo, really beautiful images from this little camera.
Funky Dread Bee Keeper -Liverpool. Photography by John Ferguson
As I’ve mentioned, the big launch was a great success for the BEO, seeing them gain tremendous press coverage from every news and online news outlet in the UK and Internationally. I really hope the response from that day proves to be a start of something great to follow on to, I feel it could be such a positive game changer for the black community.
So I wanted to thank all those who came forward and answered my requests to be photographed for this very important and well-over due initiative, and I hope you all sign up to the organisation in support of their work for the community.
BEO is a new independent, national Black civil rights organisation created to dismantle systemic racism in Britain, drive generational change and deliver better lived experiences for Black people across the country.
Building on years of work led by Black charities, grass roots organisations and anti racism campaigners, fighting for equity in Britain.
BEO is here to advance the rights of Black people and communities who have dealt with a long history of racism in the UK.
Show your support and sign up to be part of the change www.blackequityorg.com
