Nottingham Green Festival is a great event for photography. I had been photographing some of the bands performing on the bandstand and my wife told me I might get a shot behind the bandstand as there was some dancers warming up for the next act.
I went behind the bandstand and loitered a bit with my camera. As I was deciding what to photograph a lady started talking to me from the other side of a fence. “Are you a photographer, it’s a great event to photograph?” I told her I was an amateur and enjoyed photographing people. She had a green T-Shirt so I asked he if she was part of the organising committee. She told me about the organisation she was representing. I said she has a great story to tell and asked if I could photograph her. She said I ought to photograph one of the organisers of her stall rather then her and led me to the stall and introduced Stella.
Stella was front of house for an information stall at the event. Stella is a trustee of The Helen Loewenstein Memorial Trust. The HLMT makes grants to cover course-fees and essential study expenses for student midwives in Liberia who would not otherwise have sufficient funds to train to become qualified midwives. Liberia has the worst levels of child and mother mortality and has one of the poorest ratios of midwife to patients. 44% of Liberian women give birth at home with no midwife or skilled birth attendant.
Helen Loewenstien was a midwife in Nottingham and had a passion for working in developing countries, she took a sabbatical from her job to deliver midwifery training courses in Liberia. Helen died in 2018. Stella is Helen’s Mum and helped set up the trust as a fitting memorial to Helen. If you would like to know more about the Trust and Helen’s story then go to https://hlmt.org.uk
I told Stella, it was a lovely story and I’d really like to photograph her for my strangers story. I told Stella I was shooting with an old 50 year old Russian Lens. Stella told me her Dad had used Russian lenses back in the day.
I am sure you will agree it is a moving story, I’d encourage you to follow the link to the trusts website. Than you for letting me take your photo Stella and good luck with your trust and work
What a lovely smile and portrait! And an interesting, sad but hopeful story to accompany it too. It must have been terrible for Stella when her daughter died, so huge respect to her for working to ensure that others are able to continue with the good work Helen did.
September 17th, 2022
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@beryl thanks Beryl , much appreciated