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Confessions of a First-Time Organizer

Organizing Kingston Through My Lens has definitely been a whirlwind adventure. We’ve experienced many ups and downs, but already the results are amazing. We’ve inspired multiple other photography projects, and we’re looking forward to the start of the project. Thinking back, there are three things that I have gleaned from starting this initiative. They’re my  three tips for successful community engagement practice if you will.

Be excited and spread the word
People need to know what you’re up to, and they need to see that you believe in the project. Bring other people on board who can share that excitement with you as well.

Dream big and be flexible, but never lose sight of your mission
You need to have a clear goal of what you hope to achieve from your project while being able to adapt to the circumstances. We all have the ability to be creative, so tap into that! It’s really important, though, to remember why you decided to start the project in the first place, and to make sure the end result is true to that original vision.

Use your connections and don’t be afraid to build new ones
Starting with the people you already know is a great way to go. Further to that, with technology and online media being what it is today, it’s even easier to send someone an email and let them know what you’re doing. You’ll be surprised with how willing people are to meet you and learn more about your project.

Want to Volunteer?

Kingston Through My Lens is looking for some community-minded individuals who would like to help out with this initiative! Take a look at the different volunteer opportunities below, and please send us an email at kingstonthroughmylens@gmail.com if you’re interested. We would love to meet you and have you come onboard!

Technology Team
Organizing the photos online
Helping out with the digital exhibition

Media and Promotions Team
Putting up posters around town
Updating social media
Spreading the word
Photographing or filming the exhibit

Exhibit Team
Setting up the print exhibit
Moving the exhibits to new locations
Interacting with the community at the exhibit

Is there something you would like to do that you don’t see listed? Send us an email anyways, and we’ll see how we can plug in your talents and abilities to this project.

Once Upon A Time…

If you were to look in my desk, you would find a thick brown notebook filled with many of my hopeful community initiatives. The ideas in this notebook range from book swaps to transit reform, small art projects to large institutional changes. The majority of these ideas will remain just that – ideas. However, within those ideas are scattered a few creative seeds that do manage to take root, and will one day blossom into something bigger and better.

Near the beginning of this book, dated sometime in February, you will find scribblings from the start of my current project, Kingston Through My Lens. In a nutshell, Kingston Through My Lens is a 10-day, themed photo adventure that hopes to capture life in Kingston as is. It aims to allow the people of the community to see where their life intersects with the lives of others, and to bring everyone together to affect change within the city. Every day, participants will submit one photo, which will be added to a growing collection to be exhibited both online as well as in print during Kingston Culture Days. At the print exhibit, everyone will be able to experience the photographers’ stories and pictures, and they will get a chance to add their own stories to the collection. At its core, Kingston Through My Lens is about community creation, conversation, and transformation.

Over the last few months, I have been asked on multiple occasions to encapsulate the growing process of Kingston Through My Lens. The story you are about to read is my attempt at putting those thoughts down on paper, of documenting how this idea really came to be. This is a story of what happens when you give one idea a chance – a chance to grow, to develop, and to adapt to the world that it is born into.

For the past five years, I’ve had the privilege of living and learning in Kingston, Ontario. Kingston is a mid-sized town in Eastern Ontario with a lot of history and a bright future. Its claims to fame include being Canada’s first capital city and home to Queen’s University, where I recently graduated from the Faculty of Education. Kingston is no stranger to community events, and with its friendly atmosphere, it seemed the most suitable place for me to try my hand at organizing my own community initiative.

Something you need to know about me is that I am no professional photographer. Mostly, I use my point and shoot camera to capture the world around me. Despite my limited experience, one thing I know for sure is that a picture is worth a thousand words. And with the prevalence of cameras being what it is today – phones, digital cameras, SLRs – I thought that photography would be a perfect vehicle for my first community project.

The first thing I needed to do was to get some people on board with my idea. After spending hours online looking at other projects, developing my own idea, and scoping out people who could help me, I decided to go out on a limb and email some of the people I found. The emails were simple – I told them who I was, what I wanted to do, and that I would really like to meet them. Through these emails, I ended up meeting two individuals who would both play a large role in getting Kingston Through My Lens off the ground. The very first person to respond to my emails was Greg Tilson, the program coordinator at the Kingston Arts Council. He was the one who introduced me to the Culture Days movement and who encouraged me to make this project happen right away. The second person I met was Jennifer Chan, the founder of a design thinking organization called Exhibit Change. She was someone that I had stumbled upon through Twitter, and who had a ton of experience in community building initiatives. She agreed to work with me on this project and together we started to hash out our ideas. We really liked the free, participatory, arts-driven mandate of Culture Days, so we decided to register for the movement. The project found itself the name “Through My Lens” and it was decided that Jenn would head up an exhibit in Toronto called Toronto Through My Lens, while I would continue with my vision for Kingston Through My Lens.

April was the month where we really started to get moving on the project. The Kingston Culture Days planning committee held its very first get-together, and I was invited to be part of the group. There, I met Aubrey, the Culture Days Ontario Manager, as well as some movers and shakers from the City of Kingston and other prominent local groups. It was at that first meeting that I really began to build partnerships with other organizations in Kingston who would be able to help me realize this idea.

From there, it has been a whirlwind adventure. The past few months have been full of both wonderful surprises like being given the chance to be featured in a local magazine and frustrating obstacles, such as struggling with how to print all the images. I’ve had to look into countless things, from the larger vision and how to secure sponsorships to individual logistics like how to set up the space on the day of and how many volunteers I’ll need. Days have been spent in front of the computer, setting up the website, starting up social media pages, and promoting the event. Through it all, I have relied on my supports to keep me afloat, and I often need to remind myself to share the workload and to ask for help. When in doubt, I am reminded to go back to the root of the project, which is to give people a chance to see their community in a new light, to document their everyday life, and to share it with others who live around them.

In the end, I know it will all be worth it. To be able to see people in a community enjoy themselves while getting to know their surroundings in a new and creative way – that is the greatest gift.

Photo Project Themes

We have finalized the themes for the Kingston Through My Lens 2011 Photo Project. Each day of the project, there is a different focus for the participants’ shots, and you can find them below! We are also looking for Theme Sponsors to support the project and help select the photos for each category. If you or your organization are interested in becoming a Theme Sponsor, please send us an email at kingstonthroughmylens@gmail.com with “Theme Sponsor” in the subject line.

Themes
Day One: People
Day Two: Home
Day Three: Nature
Day Four: Past and Present
Day Five: The Daily Grind
Day Six: Learning
Day Seven: Food
Day Eight: Transportation
Day Nine: Community
Day Ten: Potential

Kingston Restaurants Up Close and Personal

This is what you’ve all been waiting for – our second pre-project activity!

Activity #2
Kingston Restaurant Sign Guess Who

It is a well-known fact that Kingston has some of the best food around. There may be restaurants that we frequent, where we are familiar with the menu and where we can give thorough recommendations to others. You may even be able to give pointed directions as to how to get to that restaurant. However, do you really know these restaurants that well?

This next activity tests your eye for detail when it comes to local Kingston restaurants. You will find 15 images of restaurants and bakeries from different parts of Kingston. However, each image shows only a portion of the signage for that restaurant. Can you guess what they are?

Below you will find a legend of how we numbered the images. Email us at kingstonthroughmylens@gmail.com with your guesses!

Start your own Culture Days activity!

Kingston Through My Lens and Kingston Culture Days 2011 encourages you to start your own free, participatory Culture Days activity.

Upcoming Activities

There are less than 75 days until the start of our photo-voices project! Thank you to all the people who have already signed up to participate in the photo project. Keep encouraging those around you to take part – the more the merrier!

From now until September 10th, we will be posting a series of activities for the Kingston community to partake in. We want you to leave a reply to our posts so that we can begin to engage in conversation about this city we call home. We begin our very first activity today!

Activity #1
Summer in Kingston Haikus

Can you sum up what you love about summer in Kingston using the simple poetic form of a haiku?
A haiku is a poem made up of 3 lines – the first line has 5 syllables, the second has 7, and the third has 5 again.

Kingston to Me

When someone asks you to describe Kingston, what do you say? What stands out to you about this place and this city?

Registration is open!

Registration for the photo-taking portion of Kingston Through My Lens is now officially open, and will continue up until our project launch on September 10th. If you are interested in being part of this initiative, please click here, and you will be redirected to our Eventbrite registration site.

During registration, you will be prompted to provide your name and email. As well, we ask that you tell us a little bit about yourself, so we can learn more about your interest in this project and your current involvement in Kingston. You may also provide us with additional information in the optional fields if you so choose.

After you have completed registration, you will be added to the official Kingston Through My Lens mailing list, and will receive updates throughout the summer and the initiative itself. You will also be emailed a ticket, which you can print out and bring to our project launch on September 10th to receive your participant package.

Thank you everyone for your interest, and we look forward to meeting all of you!