Rights of Older Persons in the Age of AI: Conference Photography at Rhodes House, Oxford
On Monday afternoon I got an email asking if I was free on Wednesday. The Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford needed a photographer for a conference at Rhodes House, and their usual photographer couldn't make it. Two days' notice, a full day of talks and one of my favourite venues in Oxford. I said yes before I'd finished reading it.
A last-minute booking (my favourite kind)
I'll be honest, short-notice jobs are some of my favourites. There's no time to overthink anything. You just turn up, read the room and get on with it. Huge thanks to the team at the Institute for trusting someone they'd never met, and to the photographer who passed my name on in the first place.
It helped that I already knew the building. I shot a reunion at Rhodes House back in June, so I knew where the light falls in the main room and how the wooden panelling soaks it up. That kind of thing saves you a lot of faffing on the day.
What the day was about
The conference was called Towards a Convention on the Rights of Older Persons in the Age of AI. The UN Human Rights Council has started work on a new convention protecting the rights of older people. This event brought together academics, campaigners and civil society groups to work out how AI should feed into it.
Dr Caroline Emmer de Albuquerque Green from the Institute opened the day. Then Nena Georgantzi from AGE Platform Europe and Ken Bluestone from Age International set the scene on where the convention stands.
Lightning talks and a lot of good questions
Next up was a run of lightning talks on AI and ageing, chaired by Ken. Justyna Stypinska, James Fletcher, Kit Green and Claudia Mahler (joining online) each had a few minutes to make their point. James's talk on AI companionship had the room leaning in, and the slides were a gift for a photographer.
The bit I enjoyed most, though, was the audience. This wasn't a crowd sitting quietly on their phones. Hands were up the whole morning and the microphone barely stopped moving. That's where the best pictures are for me: the reactions, the gestures, someone mid-sentence making a point they really care about.
Fireside chats, online and in the room
After the coffee break, Angela Oduor Lungati from Ushahidi and Zarinah Agnew from the Collective Intelligence Project joined on the big screen for an online chat with Caroline. Then Shane Sheehan, founder of Mosaic Lab, sat down with her for a fireside discussion on AI and older people.
Shooting a speaker on a screen is always a bit of a puzzle. You want the person on screen and the people watching in the same frame, so it reads as a conversation and not a TV in a room. Getting low behind the audience usually does the trick.
Coffee, lunch and the spaces in between
Rhodes House is a dream for the breaks. The café and foyer spaces have warm timber everywhere, big windows and plenty of corners to work from. People relax, the conversations get going and the pictures get more natural.
I always try to grab a few shots of the building itself too. That staircase down to the lower floor gets me every time.
The panel and the workshops
After lunch, Caroline, Nena and Rose Gahire from the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People introduced the new AI and Human Rights of Older Persons project. The open discussion that followed was one of the liveliest parts of the day.
The day finished with smaller workshop groups around a big table, shaping what the project does next. This is where things get quieter and more focused, which makes for some lovely close, candid portraits.
Of course, we couldn't let everyone go without a group shot of the speakers in front of the agenda.
Thank you
Thanks again to Jacqueline and the whole team at the Institute for Ethics in AI for having me. It was a really interesting day to be part of, and I came away having learnt a lot more than I expected. [Add anything you'd like to say about the people or the day.]
Need a conference photographer in Oxford?
If you're running a conference, talk or panel in Oxford or anywhere in Oxfordshire, I'd love to hear about it. I'm a photographer in Oxfordshire based just down the road in Berkshire, and I cover events and conferences across Oxford, Berkshire and London. Short notice? Still worth asking. Get in touch here.
