{"id":3354,"date":"2025-11-11T22:26:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T22:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/?p=3354"},"modified":"2025-11-12T16:11:50","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T16:11:50","slug":"imperial-outreach-at-50-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/?p=3354","title":{"rendered":"Imperial – Outreach at 50 project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every now and then a project comes along that takes you back to why you picked up a camera in the first place. Outreach at 50<\/em><\/a> did exactly that for me.<\/p>\n

\"Tuesday,<\/p>\n

Imperial College London<\/a> have been running their outreach programme for half a century (which makes me feel both young and old at the same time\u2026), and to mark the anniversary I was asked to create a series of environmental portraits of the people who make it all happen. Over the course of a year, I photographed fifty subjects \u2014 staff, students, alumni, and teachers \u2014 each one with their own story, their own space, and their own spark.<\/p>\n

This is my favourite type of photography. No pyrotechnics, no elaborate set builds \u2014 just me, a subject, a bit of space, and that brilliant, unpredictable dance between photographer and sitter. That\u2019s always been the joy of portraiture for me: working a person out, nudging them this way and that, and slowly finding the version of them that feels honest. Sometimes it\u2019s in the laugh you weren\u2019t expecting, sometimes in the moment they relax and forget the camera is even there.<\/p>\n

It reminded me how much fun it is to play that game \u2014 all my time at The Independent on Sunday was full of these portraits, looking for ways to shape an image that feels like the subject. There\u2019s something really satisfying about the challenge: can I, in a single frame, say something real about who this person is.<\/p>\n

\"Wednesday,<\/p>\n

\"Tuesday,<\/p>\n

\"Thursday,<\/p>\n

\"Tuesday,<\/p>\n

\"Vanessa
Vanessa Madu \u2014 PhD student in Modern Statistics & Statistical Machine Learning at Imperial; researching ocean surface currents.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The portraits were eventually brought together in an exhibition at Imperial College on Exhibition Road. Walking into the space and seeing the images lining the walls was a proud moment \u2014 not just for me, but for everyone whose stories and faces filled the room.<\/p>\n

\"Outreach
Outreach at 50 celebrated with a special exhibition at Imperial College on Exhibition Road \u2014 bringing together portraits, stories, and the people who\u2019ve shaped five decades of inspiring young minds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A huge thank you to the team at Imperial who made this project such a joy to be part of. In particular, Ellie Cawthera, whose vision and energy pulled it all together so brilliantly, and also Melanie Bottrill and Corrine Hanlon for their support every step of the way. It really was a team effort \u2014 and I\u2019m very proud to have played my part.<\/p>\n

\"Outreach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every now and then a project comes along that takes you back to why you picked up a camera in the first place. Outreach at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3354"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3379,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions\/3379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}