Changing Perceptions: “Embracing Diversity”
Changing Perceptions is a community-oriented project set up by international students at Napier University and facilitated by Bright Red Triangle, with a primary agenda of enabling inclusion and integration for international students. However this also extends to addressing equality issues in general, and tackling hate crime in particular. Edinburgh is a diverse and cosmopolitan capital city which attracts people from all around the world, but there is always more that can be done to welcome people from other cultures to live and study here.
This particular event was about LGBTI issues, a subject which I must ashamedly admit I hadn’t previously given much thought to. Edinburgh seems quite progressive in terms of equality, but apparently we still have some way to go in terms of being a completely inclusive society. Bringing together people from the LGBTI community, social entrepreneurs, academics, Police Scotland, and the Crown Office to discuss how these issues can be improved is a small but important step towards a more tolerant society.
The power of community is frequently in the potency of social capital emergent through the quality of interpersonal connection and communication, a challenge to capture unobtrusively with a true flavour of participant’s enjoyment and their fulfilment through the event. Iain captured this lively essence and the warmth of new emerging friendships with a keen eye for sensing the pivotal moments in the fluid social dynamics. Well done and Thank You.
Youth & Community Development Officer, LGBT Youth Scotland
Photographing this event was a good challenge – it was a compromise between capturing enough pictures to show the success of the project (and provide the organisations involved enough images to demonstrate their support), while avoiding recognisable depictions of any participants who wished to remain anonymous. I managed to get just the right shots to show value for sponsors and partner organisations, without making people who attended feel like they were constantly on camera. This also made editing easier as I didn’t need to choose between thousands of photos!