Over the past few months Notre Dame College photography students have been involved with a hugely exciting professional photography project in the heart of our city. The Saturday Town Project was created by Casey Orr in 2013 as a way for her to photograph the style of young people. The project originally started in Leeds and since then has travelled to many different cities in England over the last 10 years. Casey’s shoots take place in pop up booths with brightly colored fabrics and fashionable people from all over. Originally Saturday Town was known as Saturday Girl however, like fashion, the name has evolved with time.
This year is the 10 year anniversary of Saturday Town so Casey has come to Leeds to plan quite a few events to commemorate the past decade. In doing this she has enlisted the help of what we call a ‘board of directors’ which is made up of art and photography students …… which is where we come in. Our job has been to generate ideas and ways to make this event something enjoyable but also trendy. These ideas have ranged from ice cream machines to local bands to large clothes swaps and absolutely anything is encouraged. Our meetings involve discussion but also action. For example before Easter the group was tasked with setting up our own large, colorful and very florescent background for group photos.
So why do we take part ?
For me personally Saturday Town started as a fun way to add some interesting things to my CV or university application as it did for many of us. However, over these past months all of us have met new people and had some pretty weird conversations that really make me want to attend just for the fun. Saturday town is a great platform for young people to express themselves in a care free and fun environment: it is an opportunity to see how fashion and people have changed in the last 10 years and how we express ourselves.
Everyone is encouraged to take part in Saturday Town as a source of self-expression through fashion, makeup, fun and photography. We all love taking part in Saturday Town and as we start planning our first events starting in May I hope you will attend for portraits or will have a look at Casey’s work.
As part of the Saturday Town Project Casey came into college and ran portrait photography workshops with all L6 Photography classes. It was great fun and some brilliant images were produced from the session. Those of us who are on the Board of Directors are also working with Casey to run a pop-up portrait studio at Hyde Park Book Club on Thursday 4th of May. The final project will exhibited in the city centre during July, and the Board of Directors have also secured funding to create a ‘zine’ type publication which will explore through their eyes what it means to be a young person in Leeds today.
Here are some of our photographs:
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