‘The Fresh Fish Company’ specialises in selling local fish and other products such as potatoes, diary and fresh local vegetables. I arranged this visit through my Grandma, who has been getting produce from this place for a number of years.

Because ‘The Fresh Fish Company’ sold a variety of local produce I felt that it would be a good starting point to this product, opening  doors to different contacts which I could use to extend this project as Vicky deals with farmers and producers on a daily basis. Meeting with her and working with her on this project will be a good opportunity to gain a few useful contacts – she will know the riht people to get in contact with in relation to my project.

I wanted to explore this side of local produce, the interaction between the customer and the retailer: ‘face-to-face’ advertising. In doing so I will explore different aspects of customer service, investigating what makes ‘buying local’ so attractive. This in many ways links to my focus of part of my last AS Exam Project, looking at the perks and charms of traditional shop-keeping. Meeting people last year as part of this project was extremely enjoyable and I wanted to continue this to develop my understanding of the role community plays in why this long-standing company is still thriving, in an ever more commercial world, where convinence and competitive prices of supermarkets are often seen to overshadow small local businesses.

I will therefore be investigating the sense of community of this place, hopefullly looking into the lives of the consumers and exploring the reasons why they may commit to continually going to buy their produce at a more expensive price. As my experiences of last year would have taught me, my guess would be that service of quality plays a part in attracting the customers in to paying more for their produce, with the assurances by trustworthy and reliable people, who have a passion for what they do and what they sell.

I will also treat this as an opportunity to find out more about how local produce is sourced, and in particular ask of any farms or production factories I could visit so I can gain a first-hand into the world of food production.

The actual content of my images will be linked to evoking the style of Martin Parr – advertising language; perhaps getting some close-ups of the produce and close-up portraits of some of the shopkeepers and potentially some of the customers should they be happy to take part. I intend for these specific images to be intrusive and full on in style, energetic and colourful and Parr’s images so often are.

At thee same time, keeping this semi-vernacular link of German/Billingham  will mean that I am able to explore Parr’s language and style in my own way, a degree of individuality which doesn’t make my work gimmicky and essentially a copy of Parr’s work.

I believe that visiting a well-established company specialising in fresh local Jersey produce will fit well into side of my project looking at advertising and the end result of production.

I intend that my images will be energetic and lively, showing the community of the place, and showing how such interactions make the prospect of ‘buying local’ incredibly popular. This will play a big part in opening up of my narrative when I create my photo-book.