As part of my research I wanted to have a visual record of some participants. I find Gillian Wearing’s work really interesting and wanted to incorporate some of her ideas within my project. I like her idea of observing the public as a way of learning about people. Using this as a starting point I decided to do a study on the street, producing images of people and their fears.

I had to consider the best approach to finding people to take part. For most of my user studies I asked people whom I know to participate, purely for practical reasons. In this case I felt that a study of random passers by would produce more interesting results as they would have no previous knowledge of the project and so would have a completely objective view of what I was asking them. Also it would provide a more accurate representation of the ‘public’ as I had no say in who would agree to participate.

My plan was to stop people in the street and briefly explain my project. Then ask them to take part by writing down a fear on anxiety of theirs, and be photographed holding it. Unfortunately there weren’t many willing participants. I am unsure of whether this was due to my approach or if everyone was genuinely in a rush that particular day. I think that the idea of a photograph scared a few people, especially as I was a complete stranger and they had no advance warning.

I am pleased with the outcome of this particular method. Initially I was disappointed with the small number of people willing to take part, purely because I wanted to see a range of different people and fears being presented in this way. However on reflection it seems most important that I attempted this method and learned from it. The photos capture a moment of sincerity.  I think that because the task was quick, people responded instantly and so were honest.

The busy environment of the street was limiting in terms of space but I don’t think that was much of a setback.  It would have been more successful to find participants and explain the method, but this would have interfered with the observation technique that I wanted to exploit by asking people on the street. It meant I had no control over who took part and so the results were realistic.

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