This Is Britain - editor's top 50 - YOUR VIEWS

[OldBoy]

Originally Posted by Amy Davies

Hi Oldboy,

While you're right that the media does give the behaviour of some people a lot of attention, it's a fact of the matter that if you live in a big city (as I do) all you need to do is go outside on a Friday or Saturday night and see it happening right in front of your eyes. No matter what your view on it is, without it actually happening there wouldn't be anything there for the media to take pictures of/report on.

Amy

I live in a big city, Birmingham, and have been down there on a Friday and Saturday night with my camera, and taken pictures like at ArtsFest with people enjoying themselves including children, without seeing those scenes. I'm sure I could find examples like that if I went looking for them, but the vast majority of people don't behave like that. As regards the media and their portrayal of this, only bad images make a story, so it's these images that they try to find thereby giving the impression that this is how we live.

[Amy Davies]

Hi Oldboy,

I'm from Birmingham and yes you can see both people behaving in a drunken manner and people enjoying themselves in other different ways, but I think to put the blinkers on and ignore that this happens at all, and to not include pictures of such events would be just as skewed.

Amy

[karenoliver]

I live in Wrexham, North Wales and its gone terrible here. We haven't just got the weekend/night drinkers we have gangs of homeless and kids roaming around in the day time with bottles and cans. I photographed a tramp the other week vomiting on to the pavement at lunchtime. He had a flask at his feet that he kept swigging from and I bet it wasnt coffee or tea!

[Sue Allen]

'include' is the operative word here include but not to a point where it's out of context to reality...remember 'we're all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars' !

[andreasphotography]

I live in a small town and wont go out at night for the booze culture that live here, recently coming back from Devon i walked Torquay after dark and witness the most disgraceful exhibition of animal behavior by young drunks
it was only 7pm in the evening
unfortunately this is now a big culture in the UK and uni cities and towns seem to get it worse

On the other hand as a British person this is not how i would like Britain portrait to the world
It would have been nicer to see images that involved community spirit or fun, but not drinking

[HappyCat]

I liked the editor's selection from This is Britain.

It was quite diverse and to me represented Britain quite well. By this I mean, there was nothing there that I though.. hold on this should not be here.

I don't like the boozy britain shots but that's personal opinion. I have experienced this type of behaviour while abroad, so it's not unusual.

Judging a photo competition must be a nightmare. I certainly wouldn't do it.

I did enter this year and didn't get a look in.

I also only recognised one photo that I had made a comment on and voted for. (not in this is Britain category though).

I was extremely disappointed with the selection from the landscape section (even though I did not enter that category at all). I thought there was too much of a pattern to the selection!

edited to add.... I have only ONE post!!!!! Must have something to do with the change.

[Reinardina]

I love the discussions on what is, and what is not typically British!
I live in a university town and don't go near the city centre at night, so never see the drunks, but I hear them coming home, the noise sometimes wakes me up. I am confronted by the 'silent witnesses' when I go out in the morning: vomit, urine, food wrappers, shopping trollies, discarded tiems of clothing, vandalism etc.
I had one picture in my 'Britain' entries that showed a pair of discarded shoes, but also a local Rotary club singing Christmas carols and other positive images. On the whole, I think we get a realisitc 'average' picture of the people of modern day Britain, warts and all.

[Sue Allen]

Actually what we get is an over emphasis of one part of modern Britain and [as was pointed out by someone else and I sort of agree] many of the less fast food/alcohol pictures have an air of the 1950s/60s about them - so Britain comes over as a mixture of brain dead drinkers/fast food addicts/litter louts and old fashioned 'are'nt we quaint/let's laugh at old people/wet seaside' images. There's also an odd omission of anything that shows our much vaunted multicultural/diverse modern society. So I'm still unconvinced! To re-iterate I'm not criticising the individual pictures just the lack of variety - it's not sour grapes,i never enter photo contests but am always interested to see the entries.

[karenoliver]

I have a short-listed image and certainly was not laughing at the people in the photograph. My husband is actually aviation mad and I went along with him to Manchester airport, some airshows and other places. While there I was doing a college unit on the environment and thought it would be nice to photograph people having an alternative day out. I was really impressed with the spotters, loved the way they came prepared : flasks, radios, binoculars, packed picnics, wet and dry clothing etc.. I enjoyed spending time with them that much that since then I have continued documenting people at air shows, airsim conferences and airports.

[Sue Allen]

Ah yes - but that one does'nt exactly fit into the stereotypical areas of much of the short list. It actually shows a different, possibly to some eyes eccentric but positive side to British life.