Huzzah! New Project Incoming…

Hello there, shags.

I am delighted to announce a new Guernsey-based collaborative project, due to be launched at the end of this month:

Humans of Guernsey

In this wee piece I will give you an overview of the Humans of Guernsey project.

How it came into being, what it involves, who will be involved, and how you can get involved.

Let’s get to it!

Origins of the Project

There are a couple of separate but converging origins to Humans of Guernsey, which I’ll give you a quick rundown of.

From my side of things: I love chirping to people, catching new angles and novel ideas on life from humans far better informed and more experienced than I.

In more than five years of regular writing, the most pleasurable aspect has been interviewing people, which I formerly did for a couple of publications.

Publications restrict interviews in terms of subject matter and word count, though. I found this silly and frustrating.

I stopped writing for publications and eventually began my own interview series a while ago:

“Interviews with interesting people doing interesting things.”

The whole thing was an elaborate ploy, a ruse which allowed me an hour or more to speak with and learn from interesting people – like a marine biologist, a charity CEO, a boxing coach. People I would otherwise have no pretext or opportunity to talk to, let alone ask multiple questions of.

I enjoyed this immensely. To share this publicly was a win-win!

But my interviews went from too-constrained to unrestrained: these open-ended interviews produced many thousands of words, taking hours and hours to transcribe, resulting in fascinating yet unwieldy articles that were not easily digestible nor widely read.

It was a labour of love – more labour than love – and therefore I let it drop, for the moment…

Humans of New York

My idea for interviews going forward is Humans of Guernsey, inspired by Humans of New York, a popular photography series that captures pictures and quotes of ordinary people in New York city. 

Humans of New York make short and sweet social media posts that are beautiful and easily digestible. Not page after page of text, as with my unwieldy interviews.

Humans of Guernsey will make similarly short and sweet posts on social media, and also have its own website on which fuller interviews and further photographs are published.

Old Humans of Guernsey

Setting up the project, I discovered there is already a Humans of Guernsey Facebook page, originally set up by the good guys over at the Dandelion Foundation, who sought to make Guernsey the best place to live on planet earth by 2020. (For unforeseeable reasons, this was certainly achieved in 2020!)

The Humans of Guernsey page effectively ceased in 2014 after its curators and photographer moved off island. 

I have spoken to the fellows from the Dandelion Foundation about my vision for the project and they have kindly handed over the reins to the existing Humans of Guernsey social media for us to resurrect.

Humans of Guernsey Going Forward

Humans of Guernsey will capture the lives and the soul, the characters and the character of Guernsey in both the written word and with unique photography.

Interviews

We will ask interesting people interesting questions, and publish their answers alongside photographs taken by local photographers. 

We have already interviewed an award-winning filmmaker, a deputy, a gym-owner, a musician, and a teacher who is planning to plant a forest.

We are looking to interview a diverse array of local characters, as you can tell.

We have more than 40 on our interview shortlist, but still ask and encourage you to suggest more interviewees.

Interviews will be: short enough for a quick read, long enough to be worth reading.

Questions are as diverse as the characters interviewed: some general, some specific to Guernsey, some specific to the interviewee, some ‘deep’ questions.

For example: What do you do for work and play? What advice would you give your younger self? What is your favourite spot in Guernsey? What does Guernsey need to work on? Do you believe in love at first sight? Is there life after death? Etcetera.

Photography

Humans of Guernsey photography will reflect the interviewee, their personality, profession, passion – and where possible, in a distinctly Guernsey setting.

Angling for a photographer for this project, I posted the following on Facebook:

“Any amateur photographers interested in a wee Guernsey-based project? Very little of your time required and absolutely zero pay offered. Would get you some decent exposure on a local blog and be good chirp though. Recommendations welcome.”

Somewhat surprisingly, I had more than 50 responses.

An idea for cycling photographers for Humans of Guernsey photoshoots on a rolling basis thus emerged quite organically.

This will give every interview a unique, fresh feel, and the photographer can partake in a series of fun and varied shoots; showcasing their work, getting a boost in the local scene and exposing themselves to potential customers. Win, win, win!

How You Can Get Involved

I am asking you, firmly yet ever-so-kindly, to get involved if:

• You are a photographer. You can be added to our mailing list, to which we send details of upcoming photoshoots of interviewees. There have been four shoots conducted so far – one in a gym, two at a beach, one on a film set.
• You know a potential interviewee. If you know someone living in Guernsey whose character should be captured and celebrated by Humans of Guernsey, run the idea past the person and feel free to send us a message.
• You want to collaborate. This is an evolving community-led project open to new ideas and influences and collaboration. Don’t be shy, reach out, let’s make something happen.

Ta-da!

Ta-da! That’s it everybody, the incoming Humans of Guernsey project.

We are due to go live later this month, after which I will share the links to the website and social media accounts.

Do please share this piece Humans of Guernsey has the best chance of finding photographers and interviewees and collaborators.

I cannot wait to share the thoughts and pictures of these humans with you all.

If you want to get involved, send us an email over at humansofguernsey@gmail.com