Melton Mowbray: Documentary Photography, Sense of Place & Future Heritage

Description

Documentary Photography, Sense of Place & Future Heritage
with professional photographer Stewart Wall
Saturday 3 October 2026 | 10am–3pm

Join professional photographer and educator Stewart Wall for a one-day documentary photography and project-building workshop exploring Melton Mowbray, its people and its sense of place.

The Workshop

 

From individual photographs to a photographic project

Photography can become a whole new and exciting experience when we move beyond making individual pictures and begin working on projects and connected bodies of work.
Drawing on nearly 50 years as a professional photographer, Stewart will introduce the day’s self-assignment: What Makes Melton, Melton?

Rather than simply walking around looking for good individual pictures, we will consider how photographs can work together to communicate something about a place.

• What gives Melton Mowbray its identity?
• Who are the people who use its streets and spaces?
• What happens here that might not happen somewhere else?
• What details tell us that these photographs were made in Melton Mowbray in 2026?

Through people, streets, work, architecture, signs, traditions, details and unexpected encounters, we will begin creating a connected photographic response to the town.

Developing a Sense of Place

A sense of place is about more than photographing landmarks.

• We will explore how people, environment, history, activity and everyday details can combine to give our photographs context and meaning.
• We will consider the importance of the who, what, where, when and how of documentary photography and why backgrounds and apparently insignificant details can become an important part of the story.
• The aim is not simply to show what Melton Mowbray looks like. We want to explore what it feels like to be there.

Photography as Future Heritage

There will be another question running through our assignment:

If somebody discovered your photographs in 2076, what would they learn about life in Melton Mowbray in 2026?

• The ordinary things surrounding us today will not always be ordinary. Shopfronts change.
• Businesses disappear. Buildings are altered. Fashions change.
• Ways of working evolve and communities change with them.
• The photographs we make today can become tomorrow’s historical record.
• This is the idea behind Future Heritage — photographing everyday life with an awareness that our pictures may eventually become evidence of how we once lived.

From Photograph to Project to Publication

Creative Camera: Melton Mowbray

This workshop will lead to a real photographic outcome. After the day, attendees will be invited to submit a selection of their photographs for a special Creative Camera: Melton Mowbray publication.
Stewart will edit and design the zine, bringing together the different ways photographers responded to the same place and assignment.
Seeing the finished work together provides another stage in the learning process — demonstrating how individual photographs can become a connected body of work and ultimately a publication.

What you will learn

By the end of the workshop, you will have explored how to:

• use documentary photography to tell a story rather than concentrate solely on individual images
• develop a photographic Sense of Place
• work purposefully on a self-assignment
• use people, surroundings and backgrounds to provide context
• observe and anticipate moments as situations develop
• photograph people as part of the wider story of a place
• recognise the importance of details, signs and everyday observations
• think in sequences and series
• consider how a collection of photographs might develop into a project or publication
• approach everyday life as Future Heritage

The aim is to finish the workshop not only with individual photographs you enjoy, but with the beginnings of a documentary body of work about Melton Mowbray, its people and its sense of place in 2026.

Who is the workshop for?

• The workshop is suitable for photographers of different levels of experience.
• You don’t need previous experience of documentary photography or working on photographic projects.
• You simply need a camera you are comfortable using and a willingness to explore, observe and respond to what you encounter. DSLR, mirrorless, compact cameras and phones are all welcome.
• The emphasis is on seeing, thinking and storytelling rather than equipment.

Workshop Location

Where: Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire
You don’t need to know Melton Mowbray beforehand. In fact, approaching a familiar or unfamiliar place with a specific photographic assignment can help us see it differently. Stewart will guide you in looking beyond the obvious and developing your own response to the town.

 

The Tutor: Stewart Wall

Stewart has been a professional photographer since he was taken on as a staff press photographer for The Brentwood Gazette in 1978 whilst he was still a school boy doing A Levels. He went on to freelance for Fleet Street supplying images to newspapers such as The Sunday Times, The Express and the The Daily Mail.

In 2015 Stewart returned to academia, completing a BA (Hons) in Photography, followed by an MA in Visual Communication (Photography) and a Level 7 PGCE in Lifelong Learning.

In 2020, the Royal Photographic Society commissioned Stewart to write the criteria for its new Photobook Distinction, which he chaired for its first two years. He has also chaired and assessed RPS Licentiate Distinctions. In 2021, he was awarded the RPS Fenton Medal and made an Honorary Life Member of the Society.