NEILSTON YOUTH INITIATIVE
Digital Photography Workshops
Janie Nicoll

Artist Janie Nicoll has been working with a group of young people from the Neilston Youth Initiative. Early workshops encouraged hands on drawing and collage techniques to make designs that used the boys’ names and “menshies”, (tags). They also made artwork slogans about Neilston, using the idea of creating posters for the town. After discussions about the history of Neilston and current environmental issues, the group went on a “walkabout” to explore the route between their meeting place at the Glen Halls and Neilston’s old mill and factory buildings, documenting some of the hidden aspects of the town and many things of historical interest, including the old watermill and abandoned bridges, using digital cameras and a video camera.

The images from the “walkabout” were used in later workshops, where the group learned how to scan and manipulate images on the computer using Adobe Photoshop. They also created designs that they printed using a colour Printer, and ironed these directly onto T-shirts. Several of the young people were interested in using designs that they would normally use for tagging in this more acceptable way.