Conference

One of the great things about photographing conferences is the opportunity to meet some really interesting people (potential future clients); but the best thing has to be hearing the papers given.

Obviously this only applies at smaller conferences where everything goes on in a single room, larger conferences with smaller sessions are a nightmare as it not possible to stay for a whole session.

Yesterday I photographed a conference on community archaeology, just my type of thing. Although the papers given were not your usual run of the mill 'get the local white middle aged, middle class to come and be trowel monkeys for free'.  The projects discussed really did think outside the norm, involving non-professionals in interesting ways, and even (shock horror) on developer funded projects.

However the one that really got my interest was a project run in Bristol with a local homeless community. The Turbo Island project looked a a piece of land in the city centre which was much used by the homeless, and included excavation there.

As Christina says, the excavation seemed a bit tokenistic, but the other elements of the project were fascinating (although in my opinion more anthropology than archaeology).

The project staff spent a day with a number of homeless men recording their routes through the landscape, and there memories and associations connected with places - finding out why places were favoured for sleeping (usually safety).

Archaeological record was also made of 'skippers' (sleeping places), and homelessness use of historic sites and buildings (which figured significantly in their movement around the city).

The project has feature on BBC South West and is written up in the July/August edition of British Archaeology Magazine.

Another 'perk' of conferences is the tours that often happen.  On this occasion we got to visit the fascinating site of Blackfriars - which is currently being regenerated.  It's a former Dominican Friary which has actually been a pub in it's history, and in the future will be used as an arts centre.  What an amazing building, unfortunately I was their to photograph the group and not so much the building!