The Borrowers - Play

This week I saw an amateur dramatic production of The Borrowers, it was an excellent rendition of story I love, with all the themes I love too! The use of scale was excellently incorporated into the stage and surroundings, with larger than life props (although all a bit irregular and inconsistent, which can be forgiven). On several occasions a trap door was used to represent the floor board under which the family lived, while at the back of the stage represented the tiny house under the floor. A huge screwdriver came down from the ceiling when a corresponding smaller version was put through the trap door! And dolls house furniture turned life size when placed under the floorboards too.


The story of The Borrowers, miniature people who live alongside 'human beans' as they call them, always hiding but venturing out to collect household objects to fit their needs. In terms or my game this play reminded me of the many uses of a theatre stage, and of scale yet again! Two things I am directly involved with in my game, especially in the intro animation which I am now able to spend time on.

It made me want to watch the 1997 movie, and then I remembered that Studio Ghibli are doing a rendition of it focused on Arrietty. It isn't as stylistically inspirational to my game, but I am looking forward to it nonetheless.

Sylvain Chomet Revisted

Now that I am working on my storyboard for the intro animation I thought it would be good to look at Sylvain Chomet again, having last looked at him so long ago it doesn't even appear on this blog! This time I have been looking at some of his earlier work and remembering The Illusionist which I saw in Autumn.

This is a screenshot from
'La Vieille Dame et Les Pigeons'
(1998)

This early work is much less refined, but are expressive in some ways. Taking most interest in the street scenes, this one is beautiful -  appearing washed out but containing so many colours.



The Illusionist was set in Scotland (where Chomet's current studio is) but in the past, and in London - both rainy and foggy and bleak. There were wonderful street scenes here too, so much to take in.

Christmas Show - Inspiration

In regards to my personal development, particularly my plans to put on an exhibition next term, I have put some work in the NUCA Christmas Show. As the entry doesn't have to be Christmas themed I made a shallower, smaller version of the shop to submit. I thought about submitting a print of other parts of my project but the depth of the box frame seemed ideal for another shop, and it will be nice to see how it will work as an exhibit.

I hope this experience will be helpful, it has definitely been enjoyable getting back to using paper again.

EDIT: In doing this I was inspired to make an alternate menu system which takes place completely inside the shop. I had been thinking about this earlier while making the first menu system, and feeling it needed to be more coherent. After showing a few people and getting some positive feedback towards this I have set out making an alternate system today, as an idea of what could be done. It can also be seen here http://www.rosieball.com/Site/Showreels.html

Playthrough Video

I have spent all day making my prototype in Gamesalad Creator, before today I had a rough skeleton but now I have fleshed it all out except for the levels. That means I have a working menu system! I have recorded a play-through in Camtasia, and put it on my portfolio site. It is the first video on this page...

http://www.rosieball.com/Site/Showreels.html

Memories

I have been neglecting development of my game content, in terms of level design and narrative - which in this game go hand in hand. The embedded illustration of the levels illustrates the narrative, memories which the old man describes as they appear.

I will be dedicating my time to this during and post Christmas period, but I will need to put some updates level designs in my Revised Game Guide document. To get the ball rolling again I asked a friend who works in the health care industry, specialising in home assistance for elderly people, if she could remember any tales anyone has shared with her. I was particularly looking for happy memories, as my game memories are all meant to be positive. Her response was incredibly insightful, a mix of happy and sad memories...

One was of a lady who had to leave her family farm in order to downsize her property after her husband passed away, fortunately her son now runs the farm but she now lives in a cottage nearby with few visitors.

One man loves to smoke his pipe and talk about sailing, now that he no longer has the health to sail. He believes the smaller boats are better, fancy cruise ships are just showing off.

Another man reminisces about his dancing days, he used to teach the Samba, Ballroom dancing and others, but now he can't. He fell in love with his wife when they were young and they still live together.

I was pleased to get some happy memories, if coupled with a sad one each time. I know a few things my own grandparents have said about when they were evacuated, or not evacuated, and what they enjoyed from their childhood. I will need to draw some new level designs before submitting my Revised Game Guide, and I will try to incorporate some of this research.

Revised Game Guide Document

Lately I have been working a lot on my programming research and trying to establish a prototype menu system so that, over Christmas, I can work on my animation with a bit of peace of mind. That said however, I am also submitting a revised Game Guide document to communicate how the game structure and aesthetic has changed and progressed since my last Game Guide document was written (although useful, it is definitely out of date).

As the entire document reflects the aesthetic themes of the game, you should notice the title page reflects the level menu screen progression - the shelf of jars, from digital to paper. 

The other pages have also been changed to match the transition from digital to paper.

The entire game should also reflect this transition, through the start screens and animated sequence at the beginning of the game you are taken through the digital 'real world' into the white paper 'real world' in order to represent the starkness and depravity of sugar during WWII, when you are suddenly and contrastingly thrown into the 'sweet land' made entire of the opposite - pure colour and all digital. This is the kind of development with the game the new Game Guide should communicate.

Edit: I am also emitting any use of texture or stock image that I did not make myself, from all documents and game content. Examples of this include the wallpaper background and elements used in the end of year show reel, the shelves and picture frames.

The British Museum: Exhibition on Age and Medicine

Yesterday I went to the British Museum and saw an exhibit related to the theme of ageing, it was a display of medicine that the average human would take in their lifetime. It showed a mix between male and female, covering important stages of different people's lives - daily arthritis medicine, hip replacement medication, vitamins and supplements taken over the duration of several pregnancies.

Along the side there were photographs of people at various ages, telling little bits of peoples lives. I found the photos made the exhibit very personal, and really emphasised the rest of the exhibit. Each photo was a memory to someone.







On the way I took a few photos of the underground, as I have been thinking about making a memory in my game based on the underground.

Narration: Audiobooks

In re-doing my Game Guide Document from last year I was reminded that I planned for the game to have narration, to create a story book feel. I have been thinking about this lately, after listening to several audiobooks over the summer, ranging from the wonderful Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter to some terrible, free audiobooks including various Jane Austen works. Traditionally, the narrator of the audiobook will also do the character's voices as opposed to radio style adaptations where there are additional voice actors to play each part, and usually sound effects and music. This can work well to create atmosphere and to make convincing and enjoyable characters, but I feel the more traditional style with one narrator would suit my game idea better.

Having one voice do all the narration and character parts, or even no character parts at all, would leave adequate mystery for the audience to interpret their own versions of the characters (as previously discussed in length in my last post). Whether this works as well when you can see the character design, as you would do in my game, I have yet to figure out. For now the plan is to go ahead with narration as the main storytelling device, and I have suitable voice actor in mind.

Chat With Sharon

On Friday I had an excellent, unplanned tutorial with Sharon, who was of great help last year. Discussing time management and my priorities for this year was very reassuring, yet we talked most about the exhibition I want to hold towards the end of the academic year. It was nice to experience another perspective on my work, and such a positive one from a non-gamer - something I am striving trying to achieve.

Sharon and I talked about building fictional worlds, and how personal they become. I am a great believer in this and want to work towards capturing this effect in my work. We mentioned how authors express themselves through their work and it can become very personal to them, but they must allow room for the audience to make an interpretation of what they see, which in turn becomes very individual and special to them. One way it can be explained is like Plato's allegory of the cave - that when observing something someone has created, you see a projection of them and their creation. Then you interpret what you see however you want, usually enhancing the projection. This is a process which can be applied to all sorts of art forms, and reinforces the need for space (or mystery) for the audience to fill in themselves.

This whole idea of personal connections with games is synonymous with hand-held gaming for me, if you can literally hold the world in your hands it becomes yours. This effect was strongest for me when I was younger, but I still feel that way about some new games now. I think it is possible with iPhone games, but rare at the moment. I have yet to find a game I feel connected too like that...

Animated Short About A Shop

 

This animated short has many similarities with my game idea! First off it has no dialogue, and it starts with a child walking down a deserted street... they then reach a spooky looking shop... sound familar?  In this short, though, the shop is creepy and it has only dolls in it. Watch the animation to get the story, I won't ruin it. But it was lovely and very helpful to see how someone has produced such a high quality animation with such similar themes to me.

Ageing in games

I was reading this article about games that have themes of ageing, and having played The Graveyard by Tale of Tales, I played Home by Increpare Games - which can be found here

I liked Home. The restricted motion, the limited options, and its a short game, but the messages are powerful. You play as an old man who has just been admitted to a care home, the game takes place in one room, with your hunger, exhaustion, happiness, and bladder meters at the top. I found it to be more direct, than The Graveyard for example. Even though your options were right there, the food on the table and the bed next to it, you just found yourself unable to reach them and before you knew it you had collapsed. This puts the player in the place of the old man, and you are as bemused as him when you find that the doctors and nurses have made some quite life altering decisions for you while you were asleep. The game ends with a visit from your daughter, which is the only instance of this in the game, yet she says she has visited every week. To me, the feeling of trust is strong in this game, you have to just trust everyone else and the character you play is happy.

I liked the enforced feeling and restrictions on this game, I also liked the basic pixel style which proved just enough to create the right environment, focussing on the messages.

Notes from 'Chris Crawford on Game Design'

I am reading Chris Crawford's book 'Chris Crawford on Game Design' and taking extracts for my research project. Here's just a few things I found to be more related to my project work...

"Common mistakes - Obsession with Cosmetics

…There are five common motivations to equip a game with good graphics and sound:

1. To further gameplay
2. To permit the player to show off the superior cosmetic capabilities of his new computer
3. To show off the superior technical prowess of the programmer
4. To keep up with the competition
5. To provide the player with images and sounds that are intrinsically pleasing

Reason #1: To further gameplay by making the player's situation and options as clear as possible. This is the only good reason for pursuing cosmetics.

…Everything you put into the game should support the gameplay. If it doesn't support the gameplay, it doesn't belong in the game.

…Imagination can just as easily be smothered by excess information as stimulated. Graphic realism stimulates the imagination, but it must leave room for the imagination to run free.

…Design is not an accretive process! Piling on more features does not necessarily make the game any better - it just makes it more complicated… Making a game bigger doesn't make it better;  it just makes it… bigger.

I need to concentrate more on the interactivity of my game, this needs to become the centre of the game. If I can make good levels, I want to eliminate most of the 'real world' sequences between levels. Less of a cut-scene kind of feel. I am happier to go back to the menu screen and show it change than show an animation, this will shorten the game and its content. Little extracts of story will be incorporated in the narration, which I now want to happen inside the levels at key points.

Street Scene

A scene from the intro that I have been working on this week, on and off. I need to make an animatic before I continue I think... getting ahead of myself with the details.

Norwich: Then and Now

I walked through a small exhibition in Castle Mall the other day of photographs from around Norwich in the past (not exactly sure on which era) but some of the shop photographs were great. I managed to record some of them for my reference collection, but regretfully found out little about the exhibit.

I still haven't figured out where these places were/are in Norwich but I think this one may be near Anglia Square or Tombland?










On my way home I photographed the shops/bars opposite John Lewis too

I am noticing patterns in the design for shops, but each are unique. Each has its own number of windows, with different styles, and most interestingly they are all slightly different heights. These are things I will try to remember when drawing shops and street scenes for my introduction animation.

Re-Design: Old Man

Here is a mock up re-design of the old man, I started with the head from the initial speed paint and made a body to suit that.

Recent Reference Photos

Streets and rooftops from a train

A Mr Simms sweet shop in London this time, even more perfectly situated than the ones in Cambridge and Norwich.

This photo reminded me of some I found a few weeks ago, when looking for wartime photographs, in particular the one below...

I love this photograph, the scene is so still and the light is so soft at, such a dramatic angle.

Re-design

In less than two weeks I start my final year at Norwich University College of the Arts, during which I plan to continue this project and make as close to a functioning, playable version of this game as I can. My experience is in illustration and small amounts of animation so I will be utilising these skills most, but I am eager to learn other skills in my final year. Over this summer I have begun re-designing most of the game, from now I will be looking at what I created last year in a professional and practical way, and adapting it to be a plausible, working game, considering my abilities and time-scale for this year.

Here are some fundamentals that are strong in my mind for this year;

Back to basics - the game's core concept is still to be:
Short, memorable and delightful.

The characters need to suit the environment, and vice-versa - Building on the success of the paper shop, I have re-designed the 3 characters to be more suited to it - working with their silhouettes I have changed their shapes to be more iconic and easily identifiable. This will also help with animating the old man, his arms and legs etc will be better shapes to cut out and move.

The shop is a stage -  the idea of a miniature theatre should not be lost this year and I want to look into ways of emphasising it. I have begun designing an introductory animation that starts digital and turns to paper, blending the two worlds, and really isolating the shop as the most paper place in all of the 'real world'.

Cut down - decide which scenes need to be made and how many, what can actually be produced and what is not plausible. Cut out fantastical ideas and keep to the core concept alive. This means sorting out gameplay that is actually able to me made.

Different - Having said the above, this game is not a platformer, or a shooter, and the whole idea is to bring something knew to players that will delight them. Ideally it is a creational game where the player builds their path within the levels to complete them. I am prepared to compromise my concept to make it work, but I won't let this game lose its meaning. If I cannot make the levels or find someone who can, I will concentrate on making the other aspects of the game. 

Get the story straight - Part of the cutting down process will involve each animated scene that is to be included is planned early on, storyboarded, and all parts to be made. This will ensure the least time wasting.


And finally, this is still an art project and I want it to feel like one.  I have taken a lot of photo references over summer and found things that have influenced me all over the place. I am starting the new term with enthusiasm to make something lovely.

Critical Evaluation

At this point I have very nearly completed my second year at Norwich University College of the Arts but I have only begun this project and hope to take it much further next year. This term I have assembled an online portfolio for myself, with a large section dedicated to the Sweet Land game concept, and a section for showreels including the one for this project of everything created so far this year. I feel that alongside this blog my online portfolio and the showreel are the main pieces I have worked towards for submission this term. In saying this, I do not believe that any of these are complete, I hope for them to display the work produced so far in an appropriate manner that compliments and strengthens the work.

My portfolio is very easy to add to and rearrange, and it was a very beneficial learning process to use iWeb. It is clean and uncluttered, as well as thematically in keeping with my other work. I chose to include work produced outside of college on my portfolio because it often affects my coursework as it develops and I experiment with techniques in my personal work. I am pleased with my portfolio and worked hard to chose what to put on there, including only pieces that are to the best of my abilities and improving on older pieces. I do feel that I have been able to create a professional and individual portfolio and that in doing so I have developed my professional skills greatly.

This blog has been an excellent scrapbook for the reference photographs I have continually taken this year, and purchasing a camera has been a great investment. It has also been a place to analyse my findings and I have enjoyed researching my project's themes and related artists, even so far as to influence my subject of research in Critical Studies to be concerned with age in games. I have really enjoyed looking at age in games and learnt a lot, I never expected to find myself so interested in this topic but I feel it is very important and holds some brilliant stories and experiences that have yet to be explored in any great detail by digital games as a medium. My blog also allowed me to receive comments of criticism and encouragement from just about anyone who wanted to get in contact, and I reviewed some of these in one of the posts. I found this interesting as I have never published an idea for a game in a public space before. The most influential feedback I received during this year was undoubtedly from Sharon, which I covered in great length in another post, but which really cemented some of my core concepts and engaged me in dramatic changes of other parts that had been weaker.

I am aware that I have strayed from my learning agreement criteria, originally I thought that I would be able to animate a section of the sweet land level to communicate the feel I wanted it to have. Unfortunately, after several attempts at using vector animation programs including Flash I found that I could not effectively achieve the right movement that the colour would have, and working frame by frame with vector proved even worse for this. I did however manage to utilise the way that Flash works to create parts for the showreel, which I then began to focus my efforts on. I did experiment in using Corel Painter's animation facilities but there were extremely lacking and not at all designed to make lengthy animations of any great complexity, as well as After Effects which I hope to use a lot more next year and will research over summer. I also hope to be introduced to other more suitable animation programmes next year being in the same building as the animation course.

The showreel turned into my focus as I found I could display pictures of the characters in a setting which captures the overall feel of the game whilst also being able to communicate some physical attributes of the colour as it drips through. The inclusion of the other parts of the game, the shots of the paper shop and the preliminary level designs, allows the showreel to contain each part equally and I am happy with this small insight into the game world which I believe it quite nicely achieves. The showreel predominantly scrolls, resembling the scrolling of the levels. I feel that the weakest part of my showreel is the imagery of the sweet land, and I did not spend enough time on this part. The images are too zoomed in and you lose a sense of the environment length and level aim of path construction. I would change this part if I had more time, and rework some of the level designs. I know to spend more time on this part next year, and I anticipate that it will need a lot of work.

The paper shop was laborious but extremely enjoyable to make, I think that building it has been an essential stage of the game world development and helped me maintain my vision of the shop being a miniature set or stage. Making the old man character in paper and photographing him to animate within the shop is definitely plausible, which is what I set out to discover in my learning agreement. I have found that I will need many more body parts, and the best way to know which parts is by making a storyboard. I have made a small animated experiment of these pieces in Flash which does work, but After Effects or Maya would be perhaps better. I will look into this in greater detail next year, as I still hope it will be the animation style for all of the real world scenes.

I have high hopes for next year and I have managed to maintained my enthusiasm for this project despite the technical and time-scale related challenges, but maybe more importantly I have managed to maintain the heart of the game concept and bring out of it some delightful moments.

Showreel

Today I finished putting together my showreel, based on the shelf design I was experimenting with in a previous post. I decided to painstakingly animate the drips in flash frame by frame and then put the rest together in iMovie...

I used music by Kevin MacLeod, you can see the full showreel on my portfolio site rosieball.com

Creative Commons and Kevin MacLeod

I already knew a bit about creative commons licenses from my experience with websites in the past, so I chose a license for my portfolio site and put it clearly on the front page. Related to this, I was trying to think of music sources for some accompanying music to my project showreel and remembered the talented and generous Kevin MacLeod of http://incompetech.com/ who writes small and long pieces that span almost all genres and moods, all free to use so long as he is credited.

I chose the tracks I used because piano seems appropriately timeless and sort of comical, but the clarinet is quite sombre. I was planing on using distressed music that sounded like a vinyl record being played or more upbeat music box type thing, but it all sounded a bit creepy or eerie when I tried it. I think the ones I chose fit quite nicely.

Edit: I emailed Kevin MacLeod to say thank you, and he replied really quickly with a nice message. Creative Commons is an excellent way for creative people to help each other out and share things without the fears of their work being misused. 

Paper Shop - Complete

I finally finished the paper shop set the other day and took many photos.

I also made some mock ups with the man in the shop, made from separate photos of each limb put together in photoshop.

New sweet shop in Cambridge

These are some photos of the Mr Simms chain of old fashioned sweet shops in the Cambridge branch taken over Easter break, they have since opened one in Norwich too!

Update - Late April

Paper work is going well, I have quite a few positions and pieces for the old man character and lots of tiny paper jars. I have found a reasonably sized cardboard box to build the shop in and I've made some of the shelf units and the door. I have though a lot about how the counter will be (one pieces of flat paper, or a folded pieces with a surface top) and how the shop front will appear when animated. I have intested in a high quality camera over the easter holiday and I have been looking more at After Effects. Animating the level segments is not going so well, Flash does not alow the colour to behave as I would like because it is vector. I have also tried using some other animating programmes like Pencil which is simple and effective but crashes a lot. Traditional media has also proven largely unsuccessful so far, I tried making a flip book of the swimming boy but I was going about it the wrong way. I am still enthusiastic to try more at all of these areas and make something that works. Since making my site rosieball.com I am keen to see how I can mold the sweet land page to become my portfolio for assesment. As for a showreel the shelf unit experiment from the previous post could be used for this.

Game Concept Portfolio 2

In order to meet the brief requirements my 'portfolio' needs to be a creative and imaginative display of everything I have produced, emphasising the stylistic themes of my project and embodying them. I am planning on making a display case in effect, a large image of a shelf displaying all visual aspects of my game idea. This may be interactive. Here is an initial mock up I have made..

Game Concept Portfolio

I have been thinking of displaying all my work as a shelf of jars, sweets, pictures in frames and other stuff. I could possibly make it become made of colour at the bottom, definitely have it vertically scrolling (tall) and I could make it interactive... this would be nice but its the most difficult option, but it would be best to showcase the videos. Here are some images of shelves, I even found a website about shelving used in old style sweet shops, http://www.oldtimeconfections.com/Displays/furnish.htm and a dolls house furnishings shop http://cynthiahoweminiatures.com/shop/ just by searching for shelves!

Update - Easter break

So at the moment I am at home working on my portfolio document to hand in and I have completed my PDP to date with updated CV, and built myself an up to date portfolio website. I have been taking a little break from working on my sweet land game, but I have not stopped thinking about it whilst working on my other areas to hand in. Before we broke up for Easter I played with Adobe After Effects for a while and I thought about the advice Sharon had given me. I am now planning to finish drawing the paper pieces I need for an animation (the old man body parts, the jars, the shop set, possibly some cut out buildings to make a street scene) and photograph it, then move to After Effects to animate them. I aim to finish this by hand in date May 26th.

In the meantime, whilst at home for Easter I am working on my document as I have said, and also aiming to film some paint/marbling inks in a transparent container to see how liquids behave and then possibly animate over the top when I return to Norwich.

Overall I am on schedule and can afford myself a rest these few weeks of Easter, whilst still working mainly on my blog and documents for submission.

Feedback

I have received some feedback from posting images from my game concept on my personal blog, and on here. I have found some of it very insightful and I think it would be in good practice to record it as part of this blog and as primary research with people who are unbiased towards me.
 
"I love the sheep, and the colours, and the floppiness of the boy. Also the wooden flooring of the floor plan is beautiful!" (images of the levels, character concept and isometric views)

"Falling through culture." (images of the levels)

This has been the most specific feedback I have received as most of it has been general, positive or negative. From my personal blog and from talking to people in real life (especially Sharon) I have been surprised to find just how many people can accurately connect with the themes in my images, without any detailed explanations alongside them (without my submission documents). More people than not have recognised the sheep in the field of the Rosy Apple level, and have more importantly expressed an interest towards the idea behind the embedded illustrations, and an interest to play the game.

Tutorial with Sharon

I recently met with Sharon for a tutorial predominantly on the narrative of my game. This was an excellent experience and a huge help to me in developing a more stable narrative, especially when it comes to animating cut scenes or explanatory scenes at least. Sharon and I discussed all areas of the narrative and of the gameplay and I was extremely pleased to see how much she understood of it without my added explanation. We exchanged so many ideas in such a short space of time that I will summarise here what we concluded from it, aided especially by her follow up letter, all of which I am very greatful for. This has probably been the most useful single thing that I have done so far in the development of the game.

Firstly we talked about the 'real world' part of the game, and how so far I have represented the starkness and deprivation of this world in the absence of colour, and the colours used also hint at it being a passed era. Sharon suggested, having seen my most recent experiments with paper, that I may wish to leave the 'real world' as blank, white paper. This would be an even more exaggerated, literal  representation of starkness and that the paper texture would evoke two very prominent but almost subliminal meanings; the idea of 'making do' and an almost quaint crudeness that would not be inappropriate when trying to represent wartime Britain, that many people would pick up on and understand without having to be explained to them. The other would be that the paper texture would be a reminder of real, physical materials when contrasted with the digital paint effects of the 'sweet land' and that each would compliment each other. I love both of these ideas and after reviewing my experiments in post production colour of the paper cut outs I am beginning to think leaving them blank is a very nice idea...

Sharon was also hugely interested in the development of the boy, as the projection of the player and as a character himself. She thought I needed the boy to gain something at the end of each level, not necessarily a physical thing but maybe a new technique or piece of knowledge and we struggled for ages thinking of a way to make it more rewarding for the player but without changing the game too much. In her letter I was blown away at the thought that the boy and the old man could be the same character, the boy his younger self - more able to complete the task he wishes he could do, ie finding his wife. This would provide motivation for the boy, as it would technically be his wife also, as opposed to a favour to the old man, and makes the relationships between characters in the game more romanticised and less scope for them to be interpreted as creepy. From this idea the boy can develop, into the old man! This allows your character to move differently and he will grow in size subtly, not changing gameplay too much, but also solving the tricky situation I had at the end of the game to get the old man to the sweet land. Now he will already be there and the boy will also be accounted for.

Sharon reminded me that the lack of sugar in wartime was a huge thing, and that it was something of dreams, I am already exploring this as a major theme in my game but she helped me understand that with stories such as this it needs to be clarified with the viewer and then it becomes more satisfying for them to have understood.

Paper Cut-Outs

First try at making a paper cut-out set today, went well and I hope to continue this set in a cardboard box and make an animation from it. So far I have taken some photos and also digitally coloured some...

Kara Walker

A contemporary female artist who also works in silhouettes and paper cut-outs is Kara Walker, here are some examples of her work:



Walker's work seems to pay homage to traditional silhouette art like Reiniger's, but with a larger concern for topics such as identity, race and sexuality.  

Photos from around Norwich and London

Here are some photos I have taken recently when I saw something relevant around Norwich...