I was staffing reception when you stopped by our tent early on our first day at Artsfest. We got chatting about your hat (I have a very similar one) and yoga as you were carrying a mat. The yoga workshop you had hoped to attend as part of Artsfest was cancelled so it was a great bit of serendipity to get your ever-so-slightly wry portrait for Birmingham’s People instead.

Mick and Mary Boylan are my mum and dad. They came down to the Photospace tent at Artsfest to show their support, like a lot of friends and family of the Photospace team, but definitely hadn’t planned to have their portraits taken.

Mum and Dad took a little persuading to pose (we all love seeing other people’s photos yet we’re also all a bit uncomfortable with having our picture taken in my family) but only a little. I love the deliberate but relaxed portraits of them.

It’s the first time Mum & Dad have had their portraits taken professionally since their wedding over 35 years ago and the professional aspect was essential to the success of the Birmingham’s People project. As Matt, who took the images says, there’s no such thing as a bad subject only a bad photographer.

One popular image of the Midlands since the 70s has been its reputation as a centre of long haired heavy metal. As soon as I saw Martin I thought he would be perfect to illustrate this portion of Brummie history.

Of course as soon as I talked to him I realised that you can’t pigeon hole anyone so glibly and easily, Martin was as charming a man as you could hope to meet and his portrait is as much about the extraordinarily serene green eyes as his fabulously wild hair.

An art student, she had some great insights into the unique nature of photography and the importance of it being part of the community as you can see in the video interview below.

She also had some incredibly positive things to say about the second city, especially its shops!

She was great fun to work with too, picking this relaxed, fun shot rather than a more formal portrait.

Birmingham’s People: Afribeanne from Birmingham Photospace on Vimeo.

One of the most enthusiastic photographers that we know has the Flickr name TheWishy and is an evangelist of the more esoteric areas of film photography. He can often be found at the monthly Birmingham Flickrmeets extolling the virtues of many weird and wonderful classic cameras.

He has a particular penchant for Polaroid cameras such as this beautiful Land camera which are now sadly becoming rarer and rarer sights on our streets. I’m a huge fan of that unique Polaroid look, one that you can never imitate authentically digitally. We’re proud to support the band of dedicated people fighting to keep it alive.

And so here’s my mother-in-law, the fantastic Pat Flynn MBE, formerly head of Library Services in Leicester and lifelong Brummie.

As well as sitting for a portrait she consented to being interviewed by our videographers, offering a personal insight into what photography means to her.

Birmingham’s People: Pat from Birmingham Photospace on Vimeo.

Noel here and his wife (soon to feature) were a great couple of sitters, both being extremely dignified models and both extremely patient with your humble photographer as he dealt with the problems of photographing inside a small tent.

For the photographers reading, the highlights on the left side of his face and his right shoulder are not created by rim lights, they are patches of sunlight pouring through gaps in the tent walls!

She was a great help, both in guiding members of the public through the whole process and in assisting me behind the camera, especially late in the day when we had a few technical difficulties.

She was also a fantastic sitter, approaching the whole process with an infectious sense of fun. Hopefully the photo captures a small amount of her sunny personality.

We look forward to future collaborations!