In September 2023 I started working with the homeless charity, Stonepillow, who operate in the south of England mainly around Chichester and Bognor Regis. What started as a simple request to photograph for their website turned into a documentary photography and visual storytelling project, which has been the subject of numerous exhibitions.
Seaside Town to Homelessness
I came across Stonepillow whilst photographing around Bognor Regis, which I chose as a subject because it was often harshly criticised by the media and regularly appeared in the bottom of the Which? report of the best and worst seaside towns in England.
During my visits to Bognor I spent time at the local food bank and heard about the year-on-year rise in numbers of people relying on them to feed their families; I also noticed the homelessness, which brought me into contact with Stonepillow and a visual storytelling project that took 12 months to complete.
At first the charity was refreshing its website and wanted some new photography, which I was happy to do in their office and the various facilities that they run for their clients, the homeless.
After several numerous visits to Stonepillow properties in Bognor and Chichester meeting and photographing their clients, staff and volunteers I learned that most people find themselves homeless because of a sequence of events, often beyond their control, and usually starting with some form of trauma.
I heard about loved-ones who were the bread winners who suddenly died. I heard about illnesses that led to job losses. I heard about parental influence. I heard about private landlords who evict without reason. I’ve heard about workplace stress, burnout and mental health issues. No two stories were the same and I felt we could capture them and bring them to the attention of the public.
Visualising bringing untold stories alive
Most of the people that I met were willing to help themselves given the right support and opportunity, which is what I wanted to focus on. We’ve all seen images of the homeless person on the street looking wild and ragged, but what I wanted to capture were the people on their journey out of homelessness. Homelessness is not a destination, it’s the bottom of the hole and what Stonepillow do is to help people out of the hole. For many it’s a dark place and they believe that there is no way out but by gaining trust and being there to help when it is wanted people can regain confidence, find purpose, climb out of the hole and restart their lives again.
Stonepillow kick-off their fundraising season each year with an event called The Big Sleep Out, where members of the public choose to sleep rough for the night within the grounds of Chichester Cathedral. We agreed that this would be the perfect platform to exhibit and share stories, which is what we did in September 2024.
Working with people who are homeless or have been homeless requires them to trust you as the photographer, so most meetings started with a chat, often over coffee. I listened, asked just enough questions but never pried or expected anyone to tell me more than they were comfortable with but I’m grateful that everybody relaxed and very soon offered their stories without prompting, however raw and uncomfortable it was for them. I explained that I wanted to focus on their recovery and whatever it was they were doing that made them feel stronger and more confident. The result was 11 stories that were presented in 11 photographs on display supported by more photographs in an accompanying booklet.
This is what Stonepillow had to say about the exhibition: I’m over the moon with the results of our project with Andrew Cameron which really was the icing on the cake of a great Big Sleep Out for Stonepillow on Saturday. Andrew’s ability to hone in on hope and the journey our clients are taking out of homelessness is deeply moving, and is evidence that storytelling comes in different forms. He put clients at ease, built trust and didn’t give up when working with people who are struggling with their mental health posed its inevitable challenges. The exhibition enabled us to engage supporters with this flagship event who otherwise wouldn’t have done so, and is a marvellous resource for our organisation – Thank you 🙏
Visual Storytelling
Visual storytelling can be enormously powerful, the ability to convey so much information through a few photographs endures longer than the statistics. I’m sure that no-one will remember any of the data about homelessness but they’ll remember the images and stories behind them.
