World War 2 gas mask and anti-gas ointment

Reminiscence therapy is an important part of dementia care. Many deep-seated memories have a lot of emotion attached to them, objects and images can help to retrieve these memories.  Reminiscence objects facilitate communication and can help people feel more socially integrated. The nature of dementia often means it’s easier for people to recall older memories than quickly bringing to mind day-to-day events.

I recently had the opportunity to join Jon Lale from ForgetMeNotBook.com to take some still life photographs of a collection of reminiscence and memory objects used by the care home company MHA to trigger memories and generate discussions with their residents. MHA had a mini museum of fascinating everyday objects from the last century. During the shoot Jon and I had a lot of “Do you remember this?” moments. The fascinating reminiscence objects in this ‘mini-museum’ included gas masks, toys and games, magazines, household objects, and other memorabilia. Here are just a few of the pictures. The images will allow more people to see the objects and reduce demand for some of the more delicate items in the collection. The pictures will be used uploaded to iPads and incorporated into memory games for the care home residents and visitors.

Cigarette card book from the 1930s

Over the last few weeks I have been working on an interesting project in partnership with the online memory book company www.forgetmenotbook.com. The project is linked to the national Living Well with Dementia strategy which is aimed at supporting people with dementia and their carers, informing and educating and helping to diagnose the condition.

The aim of the project is to document the lives of a number of service users both before and after they are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and show how they are ‘living well’ with the condition. We concentrated on two day care centres and one residential home to show the range of activities and facilities at each site. The staff at the centres take time to get to know each of the service providers and creat a friendly and inclusive environment for all. The centres offered the service users a wide range of activities and entertainment including, painting, gardening, woodwork, music, language, quizzes, cooking, massage, manicures, pedicures.

Sensory stimulation room, Maple Suite, South Gloucestershire

The ‘Memory Lane’ feature at Grove Care’s Blossom Fields home in Winterbourne

Musical activity at dementia care home

Here are just a few of the images from a recent food photography shot for Marshfield Farm Ice Cream at their organic farm just north of Bath. They make over 30 flavours of lushous award winning ice cream just across the farm yard from the kitchen in which most of these shots were taken. Of course, quality control of the shots was rigorous, if the ice cream wasn’t presented perfectly then the whole bowl was rejected, it also melts very quickly!! Fortunately there was normally someone at hand on the shoot to help with ‘disposing’ of any un-photographed ice cream. These pictures are currently being used for advertising, point of sale, PR and editorial purposes. Marshfield Ice Cream are always thinking up wonderful new flavours so the next shoot should be just around the corner.You can see more examples of my food photography here