Personal project - first thoughts

Looking ahead to the final assignment of DPP, the personal project, I am reminded of a project I thought about shooting during TAOP. My idea involved carers and putting across the love and commitment they devote to loved ones every day, the unsung hero's, my personal project being similar in that the subjects are hero's of mine, that is the elderly, people with a story to tell, usually of being through hardship and coming out the other end, the message then perhaps that of persistence and positivity. I work in the ophthalmology department of Lincoln county hospital on a clinical trial, involving the injecting of a cancer drug into the eyes of patients with AMD (age related macular degeneration). The patients by definition are all elderly, my idea for a project has come after getting to know the patients, could go in one of two directions the first being to take an image of them in their own home, surrounded by particular items that describe their personality and/or situation. The other direction is to take a particular individual and to follow or chart their life somehow through photography. I have a lady in mind who enjoyed telling me about her life, which would make for a very interesting story in images. There are of course a number of ethical issues to overcome, in fact my project idea may not even go ahead but the objective would be a moving, thought provoking and interesting set of images.