Contrary to my usual projects documenting various communities throughout Belfast, I decided to focus on one individual. I first met Maggie during the annual Whiterock Parade on the Shankill Road in 2018. She was decked head to toe in red, white, and blue and seemed to amuse bystanders as she danced along the road with Orangemen. She spotted my camera and jokingly posed for a few photographs.
We then struck up a conversation before she invited me back to her home for a cuppa. Maggie lives in a terraced house in the middle of the Shankill Estate. Her street is festooned with painted kerbstones and flags. The area she lives in almost matches her character. The items people have in their homes often intrigue me; they tell an awful lot about the person that lives there.
Framed photographs of King Billy, Edward Carson, and the Queen adorn the living room walls. Maggie was born and reared on the Shankill Road before she moved to Maryhill in Glasgow for a short time. It was there when she joined the women’s orange lodge, and she’s been a member ever since. She used to work in a chippy on the Old Lodge Road, and she says that she can still make a good pastie.
These photographs aren’t filled with action, however they’re a document of the many times I’ve visited her home. Maggie is a true character and probably one of the nicest people I’ve met. She often welcomes me into her house, and she’s certainly not afraid of the camera. This work is concentrated around an environmental portrait series of one working-class Belfast resident. There are still many characters out there, but you have to go looking for them now!
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