It Is What It Is

By Sandra Keating

On winning the Humanist Society photographic, ‘Happiness’ competition

I grew up swimming at The Lido as a young girl in the 80’s/90’s but after moving to London I hadn’t revisited our lovely Lido until I was temporarily back in Peterborough in 2015.

I was looking for a new creative direction and career change and reconnecting with my art and photography background and was starting to pursue freelance work as a documentary photographer. So as a regular swimmer at the Lido again during this time which was a glorious summer of 2015, I obviously took a lot of photos, mainly on my iphone but when I saw this photography competition on the theme of “Happiness” by the British Humanist Society (now Humanists UK) I thought what a great theme and what could be more British than a good old Lido so I had to enter.

I called it “It is What it is” and much to my surprise, I won.

The professional category!

There really wasn’t much editing of ideas, this one was the one. I added to my entry that this was only an iPhone shot but it was deliberately crude, reportage style photo intended as a snapshot of everyday local life. I loved the serendipitous nature of capturing inter-generational subjects so casually in that one frame. This was not posed or planned and I hadn’t obtained any permissions as this was just a personal picture. Now for this purpose, I have concealed the identity of the girl but who knows, if she’s out there and sees this one day, maybe we could get the green light.

It was great to see a photo from my home town in the exhibition in Central London, but it was equally great that this was of our beloved Lido and such a nod to the everyday.

I have now permanently moved back to Peterborough after 15 years In London and am once again happy to say, a proud regular in this gem that we have in this city.