The beauty in the ordinary: Kelly Shakespeare’s Lincoln Project

Kelly Shakespeare is photographing the ordinary.

Old sheds. Quiet streets. Faded shopfronts. Brick homes with overgrown gardens. Hand-painted signs. Rusted roofs. The kind of places most people drive past without a second thought.

But in a rapidly growing town like Lincoln, those ordinary places are disappearing fast.

And Shakespeare knows it.

“I’ll photograph something and six months later it’s gone and replaced by new houses,” she says.

“That’s become a big driver for me. I realised I was going to forget what this place used to look and feel like if I didn’t document it.”

The Canterbury photographer is the creator behind The Lincoln Project, a long-running documentary photography series quietly building a visual archive of one of the South Island’s fastest-changing rural towns.

Part art project, part historical record, the project captures Lincoln not through polished tourism imagery or postcard-perfect landscapes, but through the details locals know by heart.

The old fish and chip shop.

A weathered shed.

A bus stop outside Bridgestone Tyres.

A dairy that has stood there for decades.

“It started off as photographing pretty things I saw on my walks,” Shakespeare says.

“But now it feels much more about preservation.”

The project began organically during the covid lockdown in 2020 while walking her dogs with a camera slung over her shoulder.

“I wanted to capture the bits of Lincoln you don’t notice from a car. The quieter details and little moments.”

At the time, she shared the images quietly online, almost anonymously, through a dedicated Instagram page.

She didn’t expect much response.

Instead, locals began recognising pieces of their own lives inside the photographs.

“People would message saying, ‘Oh, that’s one of my favourite spots too,’ or they’d start sharing memories attached to certain places.”

One of Kelly Shakespeare’s favourite images from The Lincoln Project captures the old sheds from her family’s former farm, still standing amongst newer subdivisions on the edge of Lincoln. Shakespeare says her father painted the sheds John Deere green more than 20 years ago.

That reaction confirmed something Shakespeare already suspected: everyday places matter more than people realise.

Especially once they’re gone.

Lincoln has transformed dramatically in recent years as subdivisions spread across former farmland and population growth reshapes the once-small rural township.

For Shakespeare, who moved to Lincoln at 16 and whose family has deep agricultural roots in the area, the changes feel deeply personal.

“There’s definitely sorrow in it sometimes, especially being a farmer’s daughter,” she says.

“We’re losing these scenes all the time.”

One image in particular carries special meaning.

An ageing cluster of sheds sitting stubbornly amongst newer subdivisions was once part of her family’s old farm and a historic Clydesdale stud.

“They’re ugly, but beautiful,” she says.

“They hold so many stories.”

A slice of Lincoln’s main street, where old and new sit side by side. Shakespeare says the town’s older shops and garages hold deep nostalgia for many locals who grew up around them.

It is that tension between beauty and decay, nostalgia and growth, that gives The Lincoln Project its emotional pull.

Shakespeare is not interested in heavily curated imagery or overly polished perfection.

In an era dominated by filters, algorithms and increasingly AI-generated visuals, her work feels intentionally honest.

“I’m really interested in real people and what things actually are,” she says.

“I love houses that are a little weathered or roofs that need cleaning. I love rusty sheds and worn-down places because that’s real life.”

The aesthetic is deliberate. No curated Instagram tiles to be seen here.

“The whole concept of the project is nostalgia and honesty, so it has to be real.”

That authenticity has become increasingly important to her as artificial intelligence floods social media with hyper-perfect imagery.

“The more AI becomes a thing, the more I feel pulled toward slightly messy honesty.”

Even as Lincoln grows, rural scenes still exist on the edges of town. Shakespeare says preserving those quieter moments is a major part of The Lincoln Project.

Photography, she says, has the power to change the way people see their own communities.

“You can guide people to notice details they might otherwise miss.

“Maybe next time they go for a walk they’ll stop and look a little longer.”

That slowing down is part of the appeal for Shakespeare personally too.

Commercial photography work keeps her busy, particularly within the rural sector, where she photographs for agricultural businesses and farming organisations across the country.

But projects like this reconnect her to why she picked up a camera in the first place.

“When I take my camera with me, I look around differently,” she says.

“I stop. I pay attention.”

Her relationship with photography began young, growing up on a farm with a family camera constantly in hand.

One memory still stands out clearly.

Her younger brother riding a tricycle in the driveway at sunset.

“The light was beautiful and he laughed at exactly the right moment,” she recalls.

“I remember looking at the photo afterwards and realising photography felt like magic.

“You could take a feeling and preserve it forever.”

That idea still sits at the heart of her work today.

Canterbury photographer Kelly Shakespeare, creator of The Lincoln Project, a long-running documentary photography series capturing the changing face of Lincoln.

Long term, Shakespeare hopes The Lincoln Project will eventually become a book.

Not just for herself, but for the community.

“I want people decades from now to sit down with it and say, ‘Remember this place?’ or ‘Didn’t so-and-so used to live there?’” she says.

As Lincoln continues to grow and change, the project is becoming a precious record of the places, buildings and everyday scenes that exist today, but may one day survive only in memory.