Mental Health Photography Group in Tower Hamlets, London, UK

We are a user led mental health photography project launched in April 2013 and our membership is open to all Tower Hamlets residents* with a mental health diagnosis. Some of our members have their own DSLR camera but the majority are using their own compact digital cameras or camera-phones.

A small group of mental health service users discussed a keen interest in photography and a desire to do something creative to express themselves, so we decided to apply for a user-led mental health groups grant from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. We successfully secured just under £2000 for 2013/14, so aren’t very well equipped at present but hope to purchase our first group DSLR camera and lens soon which will be shared by the members. We also hope to buy a couple of compact digital cameras for members who don’t currently own any camera at all.

Ideally new members would have a digital camera of some sort to use for their work - be it a compact digital camera, a DSLR or even a camera-phone but we do hope to have cameras we can lend to people in the future.

Our aims are:

- To maintain a safe and welcoming group for people with a mental health diagnosis from Tower Hamlets* regardless of gender, ethnicity**, cultural background, sexuality, age and disability**.

- To provide an opportunity to express ourselves creatively as well as learn more about photography and improve members photographic techniques.

- Maintain an online presence of our activities and promote our members work through our Flickr, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

- To work towards presenting our work to the public via photographic exhibitions.

- To apply for and secure other funding streams to enable us to purchase more photographic equipment and to fund tutorial sessions.

*We can only accept members from Tower Hamlets currently as we are in receipt of a small grant from The London Borough of Tower Hamlets and this is a condition of the grant.

**Unfortunately we can’t provide translation services or one-to-one mental health support for people with greater support requirements but potential members are welcome to source this support elsewhere to enable their membership.