University was never really something that I saw myself 100% doing, obviously I would have always liked to go to university and experience the life that people have there but I didn’t know that I was ready for that. I’d always absolutely loved photography and knew that it was something that I wanted to do as a career because it was something that I was passionate about. When it came to the end of my a levels, I had to start applying for universities and looking around them. I remember this being a really exciting time when it was for my sister, but for me I was never really sold on it because I’d persuaded myself that I wasn’t clever enough for it or I wouldn’t like it when I got there. Because of this, I deferred my place for a year so that I could travel and work for money for university. I’d say that this was probably one of my best decisions, purely because it gave me the time to figure out that what I was doing was right and that it was what I wanted. I guess, when I deferred I was just really scared that I would be missing out on something and be so behind all of my friends that went to university when they were ‘supposed to’. This couldn’t be further from the truth because, looking back on it now, I wouldn’t change a thing. Travelling taught me to be confident in what I was doing and where I was going as well as giving me the independence to walk alone and be confident that I was making the right decisions. 

If I hadn’t have deferred my place at university then I wouldn’t have met the people who have made me who I am today. I remember the first ever lecture with Kellie, where she sat us down and told us to look around the room “these people will be the ones to stick by you throughout your career and your personal life. You have found friends forever.’ And I can honestly say that that is the absolute truth. Before I came to university, I would have never imagined that I would meet a group of people that would inspire me so much to be a better person. I look back on my three years at Bath Spa and think about the amount of highs and lows that I wouldn’t have gotten through if it wasn’t for the people who i have met on this course. They make me want to be a better photographer and have pushed me to do so, not only having faith in my work but also me as a person. I feel so grateful to have them in my life and honestly couldn’t have wished to be put with a better year or with better lecturers. 

It’s so sad to think that it is all coming to an end now and I cannot believe how these past three years have flown by, I guess it’s so true when people say your university days are the best of your life. Not only am I grateful for the friends that I have made on my course for pushing me, but also to myself (I guess) for changing into the photographer who I am today. I would have never guessed that I would undertake the projects that I have done during university. The first one being my Street Pastor’s project, without it I wouldn’t be working for a charity as their photographer. This project gave me the confidence to go out and document the working lives of the street pastor’s and show how much they’re helping people within the city of Bath. This project was the turning point for me as it is the one that made me want to work within the charity sector, it also started my passion for documentary photography. 

The second project that shaped my photographic skills was ‘Centenary’ where I was inspired by the 100 year anniversary of women gaining the vote. I wanted this project to be a celebration of women so I decided to photograph 100 women in their homes and places where they felt most empowered. This project developed my communication skills and made me fall in love with portraiture. At the beginning of the project, it was clear to say I was amazing at portraits but I felt towards the end that I had a real understanding for how portraiture worked and who I was as a photographer. 

The next project, my first one of final year, Kinship was spurred on for my want of being involved in the charity sector. I worked closely with Cerebral Palsy Plus in Bristol to document the lives of three individuals living with Cerebral Palsy. I was so proud of how I worked on this project and the fact that people welcomed me in to their lives with open arms. They allowed me to document their every day lives and fully opened up to me about what it was like to live with/be living with Cerebral Palsy. I wanted this project to educate other’s and give people a voice and platform to speak. I guess I am genuinely really proud that I was able to do that. 

Finally, ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ is probably my proudest and hardest project rolled into one. I am so glad that this is the project that I will be leaving university with. There were many points within this project that I thought that I was taking on too much and wouldn’t be able to do it (this is where my friends and lecturers helped to push me and be there to tell me that I could). If it weren’t for this project, I would have never had the confidence to interview people in high powered jobs or walk up to people and stop them in the street to answer questions for me. This project led me to interviewing actual MP’s who have spoke in the houses of parliament and work closely with Theresa May, our prime minister. Looking back to the start of my university life, I would have never guessed that I would be ending on a project of this magnitude. I don’t mean to sound up myself but I am genuinely so proud of where I have come as a photographer and creative. I would have never thought that I would be able to produce a newspaper from scratch and all on my own after interviewing and photographing people on their political views?!

Even though my university experience is coming to an end, I will never forget what it has taught me and the people who have shaped me as a person and photographer. I will be forever grateful to my peers and my lecturers for continually pushing me and encouraging me to step out of my comfort zone because without them, I don’t think I would have gotten this far. Speaking to people from other courses and universities about my experience, they all seem so shocked at how much I speak about the influence that my year and lecturers have had on me but to me it is just normal? I have a lot to thank everyone for these past three years because I genuinely have felt so happy and proud to have been part of this year and so thankful that we have had such supportive lecturers to enable us to be who we are as we leave university. 

I leave with the best group of friends who I know will always be around to help with my career and everything outside of that, but also knowing that I have had the best lecturers as role models has given me the confidence to go out into the professional world knowing who I want to be as a photographer and I will be forever grateful for that. 

Guy Martin, a British photographer working and living within the UK came to talk to us as a guest lecturer in our third year. I found his lecture really inspiring as he was talking to us about how he got into the position that he is now within the industry. He spoke honestly to us about his struggles within the photographic world and how it has shaped him into the person that he is today. I was really interested in hearing about his project ‘The Parallel State’ as he spoke about it in depth and what it meant to him as a project. 

I wrote some notes during the lecture to remind me of what Martin spoke to us about. The Parallel State was a project that he start in 2012, focusing on photojournalism this project focuses on Arab revolutions with his move to Turkey in 2012. He photographed the things that were hidden in plain sight with the political movements in the Middle East, showing the spying that took place there in the early 1950’s. ‘The Parallel State is a multi-layered project which began life as an examination of the Turkish soap opera and film industry but evolved over the course of five years from 2012 to 2017 into a semi-fictional study of truth, reality and lies in contemporary Turkey. The work guides viewers through a chilling black mirror of how a society strictly segregated into heroes and villains, plagued by doubt and divisive falsehoods, can be left with a vacuum of objective fact.’ His work focuses heavily on Turkish entertainment stereotypes as the project was initially started to show the popular soap operas within Turkey. He spoke about how he started this project to show how powerful the media can be in the way that the public see different industries and people. Real life events involving the government would be included in the narratives, showing a reflection of the times and what ‘state’ the industries and the country was in at the time. Martin spoke about how this project was a mixture between the constructed narrative of photography and documentary. 

I was personally really intrigued by this particular project, although it is not my personal style, I could acknowledge the amount of time and effort that goes into a project of this magnitude. I really liked the use of cinematic photography within this project and his use of lighting throughout all of the photographs. The photographs are made to look exactly like film stills which I think is really interesting, and actually reminds me slightly of Philip Lorca Dicorcia, a photographer who I was very much inspired by throughout my degree so far.

I have really enjoyed the guest lectures that we have had throughout this year and feel as though they have been an integral part of my final year of university. They have enabled me to learn a lot and speak to different people within the industry who are already accomplished photographer’s. 

When speaking to people about what I would like to do when I leave university, I tell them about all of my past projects and how I feel as though I have grown as a photographer and someone with a passion for photography and, now, graphic design. Working in a pub has really enabled me to meet a lot of different people, from a variety of job backgrounds. Being on the bar gives me time to be able to speak to the customers and get to know them a lot, this also works the other way around with them getting to know me. People tend to ask what my plans are after I graduate and when I answer with ‘I’m on the lookout for a job in photography or editorial’ a lot of the time they are very quick to say they know someone working within that field, or if I’m really lucky, they work in it themselves! This has happened to me quite a few times recently which is amazing! Each time I have been speaking to people about my work, I will show them my instagram and talk them through my projects and explain that I am a documentary and portrait photographer in the seek of some work. 

As I have been working a lot more recently, word has got out that I am looking for a permanent job in the creative industry and so having a lot of regulars in the pub has really helped because they are so loyal and have been helping me in so many ways. One of the ladies that I work with gave me her card as she explained that her friend on linked in was looking for a graduate to work with them on their editorial magazine. She explained how they would preferably like someone with a background in photography and graphic design which sounds perfect! The job would be in Bath but because I would (obviously) like to know a lot more about it, Kerrianne gave me her card so that I could contact her about it.

When things like this happen, it makes me have faith that I will be able to get a job and also have faith in my photographic abilities a lot more. I think this time of university life was always going to be sad and stressful but I am trying my best to network and make it known that I am in search for a job, at least, before I can start my own company and freelance with a good wage. I have contacted Kerrianne and am waiting to hear back for more information on the job. I just feel as though I should try to contact everyone who makes the effort of giving me their card because even if I didn’t want the job/it didn’t suit me, I will just take it as experience. 

This happened again at the pub with one of my regulars friends. I was just talking to them about university and what stage I was at with it currently, explaining that I was nearly done with my deadlines. Speaking to them about my final major project, I mentioned how I created my own newspaper from scratch after taking all of the photographs and doing all of the interviews. They were really impressed by this as I explained that I had to focus my time on all of these things including type face and thinking about layouts. I can promise that I wasn’t just boring them with this information, they were genuinely asking. With that, Dave’s friend explained that he was the editor of a music magazine in Bath and that they were always looking for people to join their team because they want to branch out a bit more. He explained how the main company is based in Singapore and that his part of the company is in Bath so he is the managing editor for it. I honestly couldn’t believe my luck that I was talking to someone who was in the editorial industry as I’d explained to him that that was something that I am hoping to go in to. Anyway, long story short, he gave me his card and told me that I should get in contact with him about potential work if this was a route that I wanted to go down. He explained how they too were looking for someone with a background in photography and knows how to work the Adobe suite, which I can say I am very familiar with now. 

I will be contacting Andy to express my interest in finding out more about the job and where I could go with it if they were looking for someone to work with them. My plan is to get as many connections into the industry as possible and work from there, especially around here as this is somewhere that I could see myself making a life. Being given business cards like this has made me so excited for my future and the potential connections that I am gaining from just speaking to people.

For another one of our professional context lectures, we focused on branding and marketing in order to learn how to make our selves individual and be able to stand out from the other creatives going in/already in the industry. 

Marketing :

In terms of marketing, James spoke to us about how we should think of different ways to get our name and style out in the industry. One of the main ways of doing this is social media which has become a huge influence in the way that creatives are seen on a day to day basis. Instagram especially is being used to promote people’s work and connect people to one another, almost like business accounts. The site has become a lot more popular over the years for people who want to show off their businesses and who they are as people to attract customers and a wider audience. I personally use both Facebook and Instagram for business reasons as they allow me to show off my style and the work that I have been doing. Instagram gives its members an option for a business account which allows members to link their emails in their bios so that it is easier for potential clients and audiences to contact them. I made the decision to not disclose the information that I was at university as James mentioned that we should take this out of our social media as we are soon to be leaving and need to look as professional as possible. I think the way that I have done my bio works better because it shows that I am living and working in different areas and that I am willing to travel. In terms of branding, I feel as though I stick to the same theme throughout my Instagram. I have always posted my university projects on the site but I have also been posting personal projects as well. More recently, however, I have made the social media site more to my style of documentary, as this is what my most recent project has fallen in to. I have also done this with my Facebook page where I have linked both my Instagram and Facebook together so that I am reaching out to as many people as I possibly can. This works well in particular as I have been able to speak to people and visa versa. I have actually got clients through the Facebook page so I would definitely say that it is a worthwhile social media platform in terms of branding myself and applying to the wider audience.

Another branding technique that James spoke to use about was business cards as these are really easy to just hand to someone when you are talking to them about your work, and even if you’re not. He told us that he was fed up of the usual size of business cards and that he felt as though he could push the boat out slightly when giving his details to potential clients, so with that James told us to think about the size and formatting of our business cards. James chose to produce business cards the size of postcards so that he could show off his photographs at a decent size as well as including all of the information that he wanted to on the card. He mentioned how this is a more interesting item for potential clients to take and they are therefore more inclined to care about what you are trying to ‘sell’ them. To make the business card more professional, I would probably keep the back of it blank as I wouldn’t want it to look too busy and distracting. 

To Include:

-Name

-Occupation

-Email address

-Phone number

-Website

-Social media handles: Instagram and potentially Facebook

Where?

-https://www.moo.com/uk/

-https://www.vistaprint.co.uk/

-https://www.solopress.com/

Branding:

It is obvious that we all want to be taken seriously in the line of work and our career paths, but we discussed how to make sure that we were branding ourselves properly to reach out to wider audiences. I felt that this was really important because first impressions do mean everything so this is something that I will need to work on before I go into the industry, I need to think about how I want to brand myself and my future career/business. With this, I would need to think about how I dressed, what would I wear if I was going to meet a potential client. I guess that this relies on what I will be speaking about with the client and what it is that they want in a photographer, but the way that I speak would also fall under this. How do I communicate with clients? This also applies to the way that I will be writing to my clients and how I will be communicating with them, whether that is over email, phone or a more informal manner of social media. I personally don’t think that it matters how you are reaching out to the client but as long as I am talking to them in a professional manner, this is all that matters. 

Thinking about leaving university, I also what to start comprising a list of photo editors,
magazines, photographers, editors and people who I would want to work with when I leave/who I want to be published by so that I have a foot in the door of loads of different people. This would make life easier when I am having to find certain people for certain jobs and who to contact when I would need something within the industry. Creating a core list of names and contacts may help me to do this. I have thought about how I can do this and decided that I need to branch out where I go within my own time and the different people who I speak to. To be successful in this industry, I need to start attending private views, events, portfolio reviews, photofestivals, guest lectures and then show off my work and look around for people commissioning work as well as doing my research around this. I think it’s important that people realise that things don’t necessarily just turn up and people have to work hard for what they get and to actually make it any where in the industry. 

In terms of branding and marketing myself, I am still trying out new business cards. I know that I want to use a couple of different photographs for them because each of my projects have been so different to one another, but I haven’t worked out the rotation or how I want to display my information on them yet. I ordered some with an image from Centenary on as I show myself to people as a portrait photographer, but I wasn’t happy with the way it looked. I think it looked childish and unprofessional so I have ordered more to come for the degree show that I feel work better for my style. I feel as though this will help me to feel a lot more professional and hopefully be able to find a job for after university. I have included the business card below that I had from the start of second year, but I now realise that that is nothing like how I want to brand myself. 

Artist statement :

Land of Hope and Glory

23rd June 2016, the start of one of the biggest political divides in UK history. 51.9% of the UK voted to leave the EU.

With over 75% of the town’s population voting leave, Boston, Lincolnshire was branded ‘the most Pro-Brexit, and divided, town in the UK’. With immigration levels having risen to over 10.6% in Boston within the last 10 years.

‘Land of Hope and Glory’ is a project reacting to the current outcomes of Brexit and a nation divided by its idealisms. It takes a look into different areas of the UK with opposing arguments about the ‘perfect’ nation. An exploration of opinions through interviews and portraits, this project shines a non-bias view onto those affected by the decision to leave.

Mission Statement:

My aim was to photograph my home town of Boston and the people that lived there as well as documenting the change in the landscape since more EU citizens have moved there. The project was aimed to be a non-bias view of the town and the whole Brexit epidemic but also to show my audiences what is happening to the people of Boston and the leave and remain voters across the UK seeing as Brexit is so up in the air. 

Land of Hope and Glory is my final major project of university. Much like my artist statement says, it is based on the division caused by the 2016 referendum, Brexit. The initial idea came from being back in my home town, Boston which has been branded the most pro-Brexit town in the UK with over 75% of the population voting to leave the EU, but 10.6% of the population are from the new EU countries. This divide is only heightened by Brexit as proper ‘Bostonian’s’ speak about how they want the migrants to leave the town because they’re changing it too much. I have been photographing and interviewing different people throughout this project, including Bostonian’s, Eastern European’s, leave and remain voters in Boston and Bath, attending the London March for the People’s vote and interviewing MP’s on their differing views. 

This project has probably been one of my most challenging purely because I have had to learn a lot about politics and be quite ballsy in the way that I have had to come up with pretty hard questions for the MP’s as well as putting my own twist on the project to differ from the media. This is what I wanted to get away from within the project, I wanted to highlight the arguments of both sides without being bias. I have found that the media has played a vital part in what the public are thinking about Brexit as they have been constantly bias over the past three years. This project highlights both sides of the arguments and gives a voice to the people who would otherwise not have one. 

I have included a mixture of portraits and landscapes throughout this project as well as mixing black and white and colour, just like Chris Hoare and Tom Wood have in their previous projects. I finalised the project with a newspaper because I felt as though this was the best and most fitting publication for my project. I wanted the newspaper to be a metaphor for throw away words and opinions and to show the temporary hold that Brexit is having on our nation. I am really happy with the final outcome of my work and believe that it is probably one of my best projects to date purely because I know the amount of time and effort that I have put into the project and going back and forth to Boston, Bath and London. I really proud of the fact that I have created a newspaper from scratch as this is something that I had never done before. To achieve this, I had to work tirelessly on in-design, thinking about type face, layouts and my photographs in relation to the text that I had gathered. I wanted a publication that would suit my project and also play homage to the relationship between text and image of page as this was something that was really important for me to achieve, especially with all the interviews that I had been doing. 

I decided, for the physical prints of my project when showing them at my degree shows, that I wanted to show both sides of Brexit as well as the inclusion of Boston. With that, I decided to use Klaus, a German remain voter living in Bath and Mark, a leave voter living in Boston to be the faces of my project. As I have spoken about in a previous post, I had been experimenting with a lot of different materials to make the most of the two faces, but decided that I would print them on fabrics to represent two flags and two sides of Brexit. The portraits below are the ones that I have chosen to use and will be using to represent my project alongside my newspapers in the degree shows. 

Although I can’t attach my newspaper to show, I have screenshotted some of the pages from the PDF file that I sent off to the Newspaper club. I went with a design that 1, gave the images room to breathe but 2, allowed us to focus on the text and give that a lot of free, white space so that my audience could take the time to read it. The first and last image so the cover of the newspaper. I decided to break up the title like this since seeing a magazine use their cover as a poster and being really intrigued by it. I felt as though this worked really effectively when I got the newspaper back and was really happy with the way that I had designed it. 

Overall, I feel really proud of the publication and how far I have come as a photographer and person throughout the project. I am really happy that this is the project that I am leaving university with and feel as though I would be happy to take it with me to portfolio interviews because it shows another skill that I have learnt. It has also made me seriously think about going into editorial and publication works because I enjoyed the process so much. 

Since the beginning of second year, it was clear that our year
were really extra in whatever we were exhibiting and we wanted full control of
everything to do with this. Because of this, we decided that we wanted to do
our own degree show exhibition in London, separate to other courses within the
school as we wanted our chance to show off our work on our own terms and be
able to say that we have done it all off our own back. The people who
volunteered for the London degree show exhibition team were very similar to the
ones who curated our third year show for our first project, so we all knew that
we could work together really well and knew exactly what we needed to do
because of previous experiences. With this in mind, we started to look at
venues within London, particularly ones that were well known and in good
locations to make sure that we would get the best exposure possible for our
work. After
doing a lot of research on different gallery locations, we decided that we
would look at Bargehouse, a gallery that has been previously used by Bath Spa
University and used by last year’s Photography students. As we knew this had
been used before, we decided that this would be a good start to look at so
Laura and I volunteered to go to London and look around it for the rest of the
year. This was back in January, so we actually started thinking about and
looking at locations really early on in the year because we knew that degree
show season was coming up and we wanted to book in early. It was a huge open
space over five floors, when looking around we couldn’t believe how big it was
and how much space each of us would potentially get.

In the
end, we decided not to use Bargehouse because it was too big for the amount of
us that were exhibiting and we decided that it was too much money to raise with
the additional costs of everything from then until when the payment needed to
go in. We started brain storming more places as an exhibition team and decided
to look around galleries that were popular for other students to leave. With
this, Laura went to visit Candid Arts Trust in Islington as we saw the
photographs and information on it and decided that it would probably be
suitable to our needs and what we wanted to do as an exhibition. After she visited,
she sent us photographs of it and we decided that it would be a really good
space for us as there was an option to take both of the floors to give us an
even bigger space and room for each of our projects to breathe.

We
provisionally booked it and told everyone who was interested in exhibiting all
of the details and that we would need to raise £8000 in order to be able to do
it. We all put in a £40 deposit so that we could secure the place and then
started to fundraise. As an exhibition team, we were constantly making sure
that people knew exactly what they were doing throughout the process and how
much we had to raise. We decided to book it for the end of June (23rd-26th
June) because we wanted to be included in the degree show season in June where
many photographer’s, magazines and editors would be looking for new talent.

In terms
of fundraising, I was in charge of organising and running two events; the pub
quiz and the drag night as I organised to hold both of them at my work, St
James Wine Vaults. Although this was really hard work alongside completing my
projects, I felt really good as soon as they were over and felt as though I had
accomplished something and had a good input in the fundraising of our degree
show money. This was the same for a lot of us in the exhibition team as we all
put a lot of effort into the fundraising of our show, including events like
clothes sales, cake sales, pub quizes’ and Lucy Robert’s even raised money
through a sky dive. This was all really important in the progress of our London
degree show because we decided to book two floors of the gallery space as we
didn’t want to compromise on our spacing like we had done in previous
exhibitions; we wanted to make sure that the spacing would accommodate all of
the work that we had worked so hard to complete. We knew that this would be
more money but because we were committed to raising it, we knew that we would
be able to pull it off.

Recently,
we found out that we have managed to raise all of the money for our London
show. We knew at the start that this would be a really big task, especially
because we were having to focus on our final major projects alongside the
fundraising. I feel as though this is why we were so happy and relieved when we
finally raised all of the money. People have been so generous since we started
the crowdfunding page and we have all said how much this whole experience has
taught us. I know that the skills that I have learnt from being a part of the
exhibition and fundraising team will be ones that I will carry with me
throughout my career and looking back on this part of my university life, I
wouldn’t want to change it for anything now.

Moving
forward, we are now in the process of finalising our prints for submission and
thinking about the final output of our work. Personally, with my project, I
have said all along how I wanted to make an impact with my work because it is
something that needs to be shown to the public. With this in mind, I finalised
my project with a newspaper because I wanted the suggestion of ‘throw away
words’. As well as a physical publication, I also wanted to make an impact with
print and give people something impactful to look at. This made me think about
how I could be individual with the output of my work, so I spent a lot of time
looking into and thinking about different ways in which I could do this. After
going on the London March for People’s vote as part of my project, I saw a lot
of people carrying flags and banners. This got me thinking about the
effectiveness of flags and how they exaggerate what it was the people were
trying to say. With this in mind, I decided to print two of my portraits on
fabric to replicate flags and show them almost like political debate posters
and flags of politician’s. I chose to show a leave and remain voter to show
both sides of Brexit, doing so on cotton canvas 380 GSM material. Alongside
this, I will show a landscape photograph of Boston and the people within it to
show all of the sides of my projects within print form. This will be on a
sticky back material to replicate plastering on a billboard, almost like an
advertisement. These will all be alongside my newspapers which I have bought a
stand for to nail into the wall so that people can take them when they please.

I am
really excited to work on the shows and see the final output of all of our hard
work. We are all bracing ourselves for how much work will need to go into the
setting up of both of the exhibitions but with the experience that we have from
previous ones, we feel as though we know exactly what we need to do.

Another one of our guest lectures, Chris Hoare, came in to talk to us about his career and how he got to the position that he is in now. He, like our other guest lecturers, sat with a small group of us and spoke to us one on one about our work, giving us some advice about how to finalise it and where to go with it. 

He started off by speaking to us a bit about his life and where he is at the moment. That he is from and has now moved back to Bristol after graduating from University and studying his MA in Photography. 

He then went on to speak to us about his projects and how they have shaped his understanding of photography and where he wants to be within that. Dreamer’s, one of his projects, he described as documenting the world like a fly on the wall “I wanted to get as much access to people’s lives as possible. A lot of photography that I look at now is a lot of places and things that are being captured which will look interesting in years to come.”

One of his first commissions was by a weekly French magazine who wanted to do a feature about Bristol, Over The M32, where he photographed the bridge that goes to Bristol, focusing on the people along the bridge and what they were doing in that space. He spoke about how he would do things like this to keep afloat but also commented on the fact that he thinks it’s really important to keep up photography for your own sense of mind: “practice is really important. Do photography because you love doing it, do it for the enjoyment of photography. Its so easy to get weighed down by having to produce a big project at University.” 

He spoke about a quote by Robert Adams which has stayed with him through his career so far “We all have to eat, and how we connect that need with the needs of the spirit is a matter none of us can afford to be especially self righteous about”. 

I’ll be there with a smile

His project, ‘I’ll be there with a smile’ was probably one of my favourites that he spoke about in the lecture. I just really liked the simplicity of photographing one street over time to show the people and their livelihoods. I found the photographs beautiful and the way he was speaking about the people he came across was really inspiring. He focused on Redminster, an area in Bristol which was known for being the industrial hub, the project is about East Street, one of the streets within the area. “Over the years I have accumulated a slow documentation of the area. There’s so many interesting subjects within the area, historically which I wanted to play homage to. My experiences and the people that I’ve met as I’ve been photographing down this street is so interesting. They’re certainly characters.” He mentioned how a lot of the photographs that he’d been taking for the project over the years have been taken in and around the factory there to give the sense of the industrial side to the street. “For me, this is to create a record of what was and what is now, to show the change of the years. I guess this is what I want to do with all my projects, to document.”

The worst poem in the universe

This project was based on the golden coast and Gina Rineheart’s ‘Our Future’, his interest in being there and within Australia. ‘Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions’ – Luck. He spoke about how Minor White was quite an integral part of this project because he uses a lot of metaphors within his images “Each image is economical because of what has led to it and what is leads into.” Within this project, he spoke to us about how he liked the idea of sequencing and using paragraphs to link the images together. When thinking about fnialising the project, he talked us through it and explained that the different sections of the book showed how he’d merged both colour and black and white imagery alongside one another. I personally really liked this and was inspired to do this with my final output of my project. Helen and I had actually discussed previously that day about me mixing colour and black and white photography together within my publication, so this gave me confidence to experiment with it in mine. 

“I’m still working on the project but the dream is to have this published. I decided to do it in sections because of the energy of the book. Some of the images are on a black paper and then I transition to white paper to mix it up, just like the subjects within the project. I’ve definitely learnt that you have good days and bad days. Sometimes I’ve gone out and I’ve tortured myself because it’s not working but sometimes I’ve celebrated the good days. It just definitely varies.”

At the end of the lecture, Hoare asked if we had any questions for him about what he had spoken about so far:

Why the mix between colour and black and white?

“Tom Wood creates a mixture of colour and black and white images and I am really inspired by him and his work. I wanted to make this work within mine so I am experimenting with the two.”

How did you make your first steps out of university?

“When I finished, I was on job seekers. Then I ended up working in Aldi, and then a college for a few years as a teaching assistant. I now work at the Martin Parr Foundation one day a week but also work for Deliveroo. I’m just trying to make it – I wish I assisted more, assisted other photographer’s. Networking is really important, if you want to keep making work then carry on networking even when you graduate.”

How did you find the motivation to keep going?

“You go through phases where sometimes it’s more difficult but I don’t want to work a job where I’m tied up for the whole week. I want to be able to go out and do my photography one or two days a week.”

I find these guest lectures really helpful and so interesting because we get an insight to what it is like to be in the industry and how other photographer’s have made it into the photographic world. I am personally really interested in this because I still want to work in the photography industry so hearing from people who are actually in it already and making a living from it is really encouraging to hear. 

Values and copyright

As part of our Professional Contexts module, James went through values that we should carry with us in our careers and how we should use these when working self employed and freelancing. As well as this, he spoke to us about copyright and how it is really important to copyright all of your photographs because then you legally have a right to do something when your photos are stolen. 

Values:

-       Set up a legal business for tax reasons

-       Sole trader or hiring accountants?

-       If you earn any money through photography, you will need a business and will work as a sole trader

-       You’ll have a greater sense of commitment, energy and enthusiasm for starting and running your business if its aligned to your values

-       You will find it easier to stay inspired when dealing with the more mundane aspects, or when things aren’t going well

-       James’ Advice - Hire an accountant!!

We then talked through the values that we should hold with us throughout our career and work on during this time in order to be successful:

-       Self respect

-       Independence

-       Knowledge

-       Work/life balance

-       Integrity

-       Community

-       Leadership

-       Stability : comes with effort and time

Freelancing and being Self-employed

-       You take responsibility for paying your tax and National Insurance

-       You must register with HMRC

In a more adult-living side to the lecture, we spoke about the records that we would need to keep if we wanted to run a business. I personally don’t really have any clue about anything financial at the moment so (if I can afford it when I’m more established) I feel like I should get an accountant to help me:

-       All sales and income

-       All business expenses

-       VAT records (if registered)

-       All records of personal income

-       Go to a bank and set up a business account after you’ve set up with a business house

An Accountant will

-       Prepare your profit and loss account for your trading year

-       Prepare your balance sheet for your trading year

-       Prepare yourself assessment tax return for the tax year based on the previous year

If you have an accountant or agent it’s unlikely that you will get investigated by HMRC which a lot of people do as they pay their taxes wrong or something goes wrong financially

Capital Allowances:  is the practice of allowing a company to get tax relief on tangible capital expenditure by allowing it to be expensed against its annual pre-tax income:

-       Equipment : camera, lights, computer, printer, software

-       Car : limited to the business use

Allowable Expenses: 

-       Office costs : stationary, mobile phone

-       Marketing : website/hosting, advertising, postal costs

-       Business : accountant, bank charges

-       Insurance : building (business use), public liability, contents, equipment

-       Travel : car/train/bus/plane/hotels, car maintenance/MOT, road tax, petrol

-       Raw materials/consumables : film, colourama, props, models

-       Cost of Premises : aka studio - rent/mortgage, gas, electricity, water, internet

Public Liability –

James suggested that we all join a union because this would mean that we would be automatically covered by lawyers. This could include NUJ (National Union of Journalists) or BIPP (British Institute of Professional Photography)

Insurance – get all of your gear and equipment covered so that if anything was so go wrong with it, you would be covered

Copyright :

Intellectual Property Rights (IP)

-       Copyright is part of a wider group of rights called intellectual property rights. ‘intellectual’ because they are products of the human mind and ‘property’ because they owned a house or piece of property

-       Intellectual property in the UK includes : patents, trademarks and design rights and protects performances as well as works protected by Copyright

-       All photographs are afforded copyright protection under UK law

-       In the UK the photographer (or visual artist) will own the copyright of their photograph for their life plus 70 years

Never assign over your copyright

-       You lose your moral rights to your imagery. EG. Your imagery might be used to promote something you are strongly      against. This could impact you personally and your ‘brand’. NEVER DO THIS and I need to remember that I should never feel as though this is my only option.

-       You could be financially liable if a subsequent use is defamatory

-       The assignee can resell your imagery

-       Your imagery can be altered and digitally manipulated, but still assumed to be your work. This could affect your      reputation and brand

-       There is almost always no need – you can grant the client a usage license, even all media, worldwide, in perpetuity, and still retain copyright and ultimate control

How/what should you negotiate

-       Explain you do not assign copyright, that you license your work

-       They do not need copyright, they need an exclusive license to use

-       They do not need all media, worldwide in perpetuity

-       The cost of all the usage total rights assignment gives is extremely high

-       Show them the copyright4clients website

-       Ask them exactly where they need to use the work so that you can price the job fairly

-       Offer an exclusive licence (allows the client to control the work during the negotiated term)

Talking through all of these in the lecture made me realise how much you actually have to think about when setting up your own business and going freelance. As this is something that I want to eventually do, I felt as though this lecture was really important to me. Especially because James has been in our position as new graduates and knows how the market is working in terms of mugging new photographer’s off. He really helped me to understand about copyright and taxes and how to stick to my guns about certain things. 

At the end of the first project of third year, we had the opportunity to exhibit our work at Walcot Chapel. A place that we were familiar with and have previously exhibited in before in second year. We knew the space now and how we could display our work, so a core group of us, the exhibition team that was similar to last time, started working really hard over a week to bring everyone’s work together. This exhibition was one that we did from scratch, we organised ourselves as an exhibition team and gave each other different jobs to do so that it made the task at hand easier and quicker. All of us in the team helped to put up the exhibition including the putting together of the boards, nailing and hanging work into the walls and setting up the lights; we had to think of everything ourselves for this exhibition which was quite a big task as we had had the help of James in our previous exhibition. I was a part of the curation team again as I expressed how much I really enjoyed being a part of deciding where work would go in relation to what it was and where the light was. I decided that Robyn’s large sticky print and sculptured hand (which was on a plinth) would look effective in the corner of the room nearest to the window to maximise the way that the lighting hit her work. I also thought that this would be a good statement piece to see when the audience walked around the corner. I feel as though there was a definite positive change between the exhibition at the end of second year to this exhibition as you could see that the year was more experimental with the materials that they were printing on and definitely thought about how they were going to exhibit their work a lot more. 

A curator is: responsible for assembling, cataloguing, managing and presenting/displaying artistic collections. We were given the task of choosing from people’s large mass of work and deciding which would fit in best with the rest of the exhibition space. This was both good fun and hard work as we didn’t want to let anyone down by telling them that their work didn’t necessarily make it into the exhibition. We tried to come at this job as fair as possible so that everyone who wanted work in the space had it. We also asked people which of their work they would prefer to put into the exhibition so that they got a say of what went in. I think that, as a team, we worked particularly well to work together and be as professional as possible. 

We were really happy with the turnout at the opening night of the exhibition as it felt as though all of our hard work actually paid off. Having people coming to see our work was a positive step foreword and made us all feel like our work was getting exposure. The whole chapel was full of people from the industry and our friends coming to support us. The fact that we were able to stand and celebrate all of the work we had done in the first time made us all feel the worth of doing it. I feel that this has helped us to tackle organising the London degree show. 

Throughout our final year of university, we have been encouraged to enter as many competitions as we can. There have been ones that have been suggested to us to enter but also ones that I have found and entered myself just to get the experience of entering competitions and writing statements about my work. I feel as though this is a really vital part of my transition into my future careers in photography as it is not only to get my name out there but also my style of work. 

Why enter?

• Exposure : key figures in the industry looking at and reviewing your work (I entered a competition)
• Money : most prizes are in the forms of grants (have to write a proposal for a grant)
• Profile : raise your profile. Longlist, shortlist and winning
• Professional practic
• Communicate and define your ideas. Most awards will demand a 200-500 word description and 5 - 20 image portfolio.

Competitions to Consider :

• Taylor Wessing : photographic portrait prize
• Rebecca Vassie memorial award
• Third national Jerwood/Photoworks Awards
• South west graduate, photo prize

Think about :

• Read the small print
• Most competitions require you to pay with no guarantee of success
• Find competitions that link to big industries
• Image right grabs: some competitions require you to sign over some or all of your rights for their own PR and marketing… careful on losing out.
• Ensure you’re aware of potential commitments : exhibitions, books, interviews, time
• Look for silent partners or organisations who may profit from your work ; parent companies/sponsors
• Who else has entered and won the competitions you’re entering
• Check you’re eligible
• Edit your series, be concise, stand out, be professional, be noticed
• When editing for competitions : ask someone you trust for help; you are too close to your pictures
• Show someone who you don’t know your photographs already
• Can your work be shown within a certain amount of photos? 5 images?
• Use work prints to physically move your work around, pin them to a wall to work out your strongest sequence
• Always have a contingency budget (incase something goes wrong or your need to cover costs)

Writing proposals :

• Introduction to your project. Background information, who cares?
• Why do you want to do it? What is it that you want to say? Why do you care so much?
• How are you going to do it? What research have you done? What groundwork already exists? (the more research the better with this one, stay within the word count)
• Budget (if applicable) not free money. Use a table if needed to help illustrate
• Why have you applied? What would the grant/award mean to you? Why do you want to work with the organisations? 

With these in mind, I entered several competitions throughout third year that I saw to take the opportunity for. 

LensCulture:

The first competition that I entered was Lens Culture’s portrait awards competition which was open to everyone, all over the world. You could either enter a series of images of one single image, but I personally entered one, which I chose to do for free. I thought that this was a really good option because the people who only wanted to enter a single image didn’t have to pay anything but would equally have their portrait seen by top people within the industry including:

• Karen McQuaid Senior Curator, The Photographers’ Gallery, UK
• Anne Farrar Director of Photography, National Geographic Traveler, United States
• Manila Camarini Photo Editor, D La Repubblica, Italy
• Richard Renaldi Portrait Photographer United States
• Lucy Conticello Director of Photography, M Magazine, Le Monde France
• Deborah Klochko Executive Director and Chief Curator, Museum of Photographic Arts United States
• Jennifer Murray Executive Director, Filter Photo United States
• Jim Casper Editor-in-Chief, Lens Culture The Netherlands

Even though the photograph that I entered didn’t get picked, I am still really happy that I entered it because it has enabled me to gain experiences and be confident enough for people to see work that I have done outside of University. LensCulture announced ‘39 talented photographers as the winners, jurors’ picks and finalists of the LensCulture Portrait Awards. These remarkable photographers come from 20 countries on five continents, and their work reflects a wide range of contemporary portraiture being made around the world today. For this award, we wanted to discover and celebrate innovative approaches to portraiture alongside stunning traditional work.’

Palm Photography Prize:

The second competition that I entered was suggested to us to look into as it is known for being a good competition and way of getting your photography heard. ‘Palm Studios is a London-based publisher focusing on photography. It’s outputs are curated and edited by Lola Paprocka, a photographer, curator and publisher based in London. Her inspirations come primarily from Brutalist architecture, nature and portraiture. These themes frequently present themselves throughout her body of work. Lola has exhibited globally in various group shows and photography festivals. Palm showcases photographers and artists through creative projects, online features, exhibitions, events and book launches’ (https://palmstudios.co.uk/about/palm-studios-2/). The most recent competition ‘Palm Photo Prize’ is an annually occurrence and is judged by different people within the industry each year. This year, the judging panel comprised of:

• Karen McQuaid – Senior Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery
• Sarah Allen – Assistant Curator at Tate Modern
• David Campany – writer, curator, artist and teacher
• Jessica Lopez – Photo editor at Polaroid Originals

This photograph didn’t get chosen, but I am really happy that I can say that I made myself enter the competition as it has given me the opportunity to get my work out there and seen by many. 

Source:

‘Source is a quarterly photography magazine, available in print and as a digital edition, published in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We publish emerging photographic work and engage with the latest in contemporary photography through news, thoughtful features and reviews of the latest exhibitions and books from Ireland and the UK. Our website brings together an archive of writing and pictures from the magazine alongside current features. Source is distributed throughout the UK, Ireland and internationally and is the longest running photographic review in the UK since the closure of Creative Camera magazine in 2001, and is comparable to other international photography titles such as Aperture in the US, Camera Austria, and Katalog in Denmark. (http://www.source.ie/main/about.html). ‘Source is interested in seeing new previously unpublished projects for publication and has an open and ongoing submissions policy. We publish a variety of work but we would encourage you to see what kind of material we publish by looking at the material available within our online archive. Graduate Photography Online is Source’s annual showcase for Photographers graduating from University and Art College based photography courses. Since the project’s introduction in 2007 the majority of partcipating courses have been drawn from Colleges and Universities based in the UK and Ireland - though we have had courses from the USA and even Dubai take part. Since 2008, every year we also commission a number of prominent figures from the world of photography to select their favourite sets of work from all the material submitted. Each participating Photographer submits eight images selected from their graduate work, accompanied by a paragraph of text outlining the intent of the work and their contact details.’

Overall, entering these competitions has allowed me to express myself more as a photographer and get my work seen by industry professionals and people to a high standard. I am hoping that this will give me the confidence to carry on entering my work into competitions and galleries in the near future. 

Finally, I have always had in the back of my mind that whatever career path I go in to, I always want it to be within the creative industry as I do not want to lose my creative flare. With this in mind, I have thought about looking around for jobs as a photo editor for magazines, as well as curator and exhibition jobs. As I have been on the committee for all of the exhibition shows that we have done at university, I have first hand experience with setting up the exhibitions and curating my peers work. This experience has enabled me to get a small insight into the life of a curator and I have really enjoyed that I have been able to do so.

My ambition for this only grew when Karen McQuade, head curator at the Photographer’s Gallery in London, came to do a guest lecture. The way that she was talking about her career and the people that she got to meet doing it really inspired me. She started off small within the industry and grew to be in the position that she is in now. I feel, as a female and being that highly recognised it really inspiring and I could only hope to ever be as accomplished as she is. She is also asked to be on the panel for a lot of photography competitions as her work and opinion is so valued by others within the industry. She spoke to us about how she has travelled all over to curate and exhibit other photographer’s work and how they have trusted her to do so. I felt as though this was really exciting so I wanted to learn more about it and realised that this would be something that I would love to do as a career.

Although this would not be my only choice for a career path, I feel as though it would be a really interesting and important job. Also allowing me to get my foot in the door of the industry and meet people throughout the creative world. When speaking to my friend at work about this (she has recently started working at the Royal Photographic Society in Bristol), she said how her boss is looking for a graduate to work in the exhibition and curation team. It was unbelievable how excited I got when she was talking to me about this because I feel as though this would be an amazing opportunity for me both career and life style wise. I am definitely interested in this and will be looking out for the job posting over the next couple of months.

As well as working with charities, I have also recently been thinking about other career paths that I would be potentially interested in doing.

Since recently completing my project ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, I have realised how much I love doing editorial work. Creating a newspaper from scratch has meant that I have had to think about all different outcomes of it. I had to focus on the Indesign file initially where I was thinking about image layout, type face and thinking about how to make the newspaper contemporary and exciting for my audiences. I surprised myself with this as I actually really enjoyed being able to call the shots and completely create it from scratch. This gave me 100% creative hold over the publication and meant that I was able to finalise the project exactly how I envisaged it.

Speaking to Kellie about the project, she mentioned how much work goes in to creating your own publication and that I should consider going into editorial work when I leave because she was really impressed the way that I finalised the newspaper. This was a really big push in the right direction for me because I felt as though someone actually had faith in what I was doing. I think that it is really difficult in the creative industry to feel as though you could actually get somewhere through all of the other amazing creatives alongside you. This push made me think about all of the job opportunities that are out there and all of the things that I could go in to when I leave University. The knowledge that I gained when using Indesign and working with type face gave me the confidence to finish the publication to a standard that I am really happy with. I feel as though, now, editorial jobs would be something that I am seriously going to consider because I enjoyed it so much. Working in an editorial job would also allow me to work within the journalistic sector, which is something that I have always been really interested in and even more so coming out of my project on Brexit.

I am now looking at jobs to do with editorial and journalism work to see what is around. I would preferably stay within the South West region, around Bristol as this is the area that is up and coming for creatives so will hold the best opportunities within this job sector. I have been looking on job sites and graduate platforms and speaking to people already within the jobs to see how likely this is to happen and get in to.

Speaking to people face to face is definitely the best way that I have found to get job opportunities as they can really get a feel for who you are as a creative. Doing this has enabled me to grow as a person within my confidence of my work and when speaking to people about my future. I managed to get a few business cards doing this, one of which is an editor for a music magazine in Bath so I will definitely be contacting him as he explained that they are always looking for new people to join the team. He said that the fact that I have a photography degree and knowledge of Indesign and Photoshop were skills that they would be looking for in a future employee, so this is really exciting.

My focus now is to get my foot in the door with as many people as possible in order to widen the opportunities for future employability.

Now that I am getting towards the end of third year, it is obvious that I need to start thinking more about my career path and where I would like to go with it. I have been working with charities, whether that’s volunteering or fundraising for them since a very young age. This has enabled me to work with many different people and encourage my confidence with speaking to people of all different ages and backgrounds.

I believe that this helped me to undergo my Street Pastor’s project in second year, which therefore enabled me to get the contacts with the Genesis Trust (who run the street pastor’s project). I was lucky enough to get asked in for a meeting by The Genesis Trust to discuss the project, as I emailed them with the images that I took whilst out on the shifts. In the meeting, I was praised on my photographs and how I captured the street pastor’s in a really subtle yet positive way. This was great to hear because I’ve really respected the work that the charity has been doing since I moved to Bath in 2016. They asked me if I would be interested in being their photographer for all of their projects as they really liked my documentary style and were told that I was really good with people. This obviously gave me a huge confidence boost as I felt as though I was actually going to get somewhere with my career.

I have been working with the Genesis Trust for nearly two years now and feel as though I have created a bond with the charity and the people who I come into contact with there. This has only encouraged the fact that I would like to carry on photographing for charities so with that, I contacted many different charities with the hopes of receiving a response from them. I have worked with a Cerebral Palsy charity in Bristol, Cerebral Palsy Plus, as well as Mind in Bath and some work with St John Ambulance. It is really important to me to get as many contacts as possible because this is a potential career path for me and one that I have always wanted to go into.

The first career path that I have planned for and would love to go in to is photographing for charities, and if possible, international charities as a freelance photographer. This would enable me continue with my documentary photography and the photojournalism side that I am really passionate about and enjoy doing. I also feel that this career path would enable me to continue to work with people from all walks of life and ages, which is something that I feel really confident about and would love to continue to do in the future. The reason why I would love to work internationally is because I have always that I would love to travel, so being able to travel with my work would be an incredibly great opportunity.

My plan is to contact charities such as ‘Save the Children’, Action Aid and Oxfam, along with charity work that goes out to natural disaster places such as Haiti. I know that this is a long shot but it is something that I would love to try and do, and even if this doesn’t happen then I know that I have tried my hardest to do so.

Planning ahead to the future is scary, I thought I had a lot of time to think about exactly what it was that I wanted to do after university “oh I have three years to think, that’s so long”. In reality, you spend most of that trying to tackle the task ahead of you and make sure you pass the project. For me, I have really enjoyed undertaking projects that meant I was educating myself as well as other’s. I really like to push myself with my projects, I would have never thought that I would photograph 100 women in less than 30 days, or work with the Street Pastors on their night shifts, or liaise with charities and be able to produce a book focusing on three individuals living with Cerebral Palsy and I would have never thought that my final major project would be on politics! I’ve spoken to and worked with so many different people over these last three years and I can honestly say that it has shaped me as a person and a photographer.

Moving to the future, I feel as though I have found an area of photography where I could see myself working in the future. My project ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ has given me an insight into journalism and interviewing subjects as well as photographing them in their environments. I really enjoyed this side of photography as I felt as though it pushed me to really think about my subjects and what they stood for. My final output of this project was a newspaper, which I created from scratch with all of my interviews and photographs, as well as gathered information. With this in mind, I am considering going in to journalistic or editorial work as I felt really alive with this project and that I could actually take it further.

When I showed Kellie my newspaper, she commented on the fact that I should seriously consider going into editorial work because there isn’t many people who can say they have created a newspaper from scratch all by themselves. This got me thinking about the potential jobs that I could go in to after university.

I am signed up to so many job opportunity sites and am constantly getting emails with graduate jobs and internships. A lot of them, however, revolve around graphic design with not many of them having opportunities in photography jobs. Thinking about this, I have come to terms with the fact that I may not necessarily get a full time job in the creative industry straight away, but I have always said that I will continue with my freelance work with the charities and photoshoots for families.

Currently, the future career plans that I am considering are; a photographer for big charities internationally, editorial and journalism, a photo editor for a magazine and then eventually a lecture after studying a masters later on in life. I would like to wait a few years to study my masters because I feel as though this will give me a greater opportunity for photography experience as well as life experience. I will go into these more over further blog posts.

I want to address the struggles that we have spoken about previously in lectures and seminars; the struggles of keeping your status in the photographic and creative industry. There have been many times where the photographic world has come under strains from companies like Apple, creating iPhones with cameras just as good a pixel as your typical DSLR camera.

I have been reading articles around the issue, there are many conflicting thoughts on the matter. Many people fight for the industry and say that it could never be a dying working environment whereas some people say that there are too many people with access to good cameras that there isn’t really any need for professional photographers. Reading some of these articles has made me rethink the whole photographic industry. Are they right? Do we still have a place in the industry?

I guess it is something that has been at the back of my mind for a while now and ever since starting the photography course at uni, I have been thinking about it more and more since we have also been discussing the facts a lot more. I would love to be able to look at the industry and say I will definitely have a job by the end of my university degree but thats not always the case…

There is an article on Reddit discussing “Is Professional Photography Dying?”. After reading through it, I have a few points that I would like to address… I think the person asking this question has the same sort of worries that I do with the industry:

He has addressed his concern within the photographic industry and is asking for other thoughts on the matter. Some of the people replying to it got a bit hot headed and worked up about the situation. There was near enough an equal divide between the two sides of this discussion. Many people thought that it might be an industry that needed a rethink whereas some people thought that we needed to carry on as we are.

As shown here, there are many conflicting opinions and people outing them in very different ways. Reading through this, it is easy to pick out the areas that people are finding concerning in the industry. Many people have commented on the fact that the industry is getting more and more expensive which primarily ends with people no longer being able to afford the equipment and expense of it all. This is something that is worrying professional photographers, but also something that could be overcome if you are a photographer already in the industry or know a way in that is going to get you enough £££. I think the underlaying answer to it all is: if you’re hard working and passionate about photography enough then you will make it. If you go into the industry half-heartedly then there is no way that you are going to be able to make a living from it.

References:

• https://fstoppers.com/news/professional-photographer-shares-uncomfortable-truths-about-industry-68077

When thinking about professional portfolio’s to take to interviews and meetings, it is important to think about who you are as a photographer. I have had to think about this when attending meetings for the charities that I work for when having to pitch my ideas and photographic style for a job. Thinking about leaving University, it is important for me to think about where I am going with my career. Whether I will be freelancing or working for an employer, I need to use my unique style to create a professional portfolio that will increase my chances of being remembered.

When talking about this in our professional contexts lecture, James mentioned these important points:

Personal portfolio development:

• It needs to reflect clearly your intention and your identity as a photographer
• It needs to stand out from the rest and be memorable
• Be unique and concise
• USP - unique selling point
• Create a concise edit of images on a story
• Show a variety of work: portraits, landscapes, interviews

Addressing the following questions:

• What sort of photographer am I?
• Where do you situate your practice in relation to past and contemporary photography?
• What is the best way to present yourself to be true to your identity as a photographer?

First steps when developing portfolio:

• Organise your time effectively in order to set aside enough time to develop your own ideas and projects
• Do your research well so to underpin your ideas effectively and help to generate and mature your ideas and approach
• Allow enough time to produce and present this work to the highest quality possible
• Have a regular slot in the month to evaluate what you have done so far and plan your next stage
• Use space to curate a selection of my strongest images
• Think about visual language and how my images relate
• I don’t have to include much text within the portfolio, let the images speak for themselves with a little bit of text

Who to contact:

• Look at some agencies and galleries to find examples of portfolios - WebberRepresents, Vue Photographer’s agent, Lisa Pritchard, Gregory Halpern (online portfolio), Panos Pictures (documentary)

The benefits of having a specialism/niche are:

• It increases my chances of being remembered as a photographer
• It becomes easier to find a place in the market
• Go into an area that I am really interested in, it will make me enjoy it and produce better work
• Focusing on one area will make me more likely to become an expert
• Concentrates my efforts in one area and don’t get distracted… be careful not to be too specialised

Demonstrating clear intent will enable me to shine through as a photographer and stand out to future employers. If I do this, my reviewers will respond to my work as I will show focus, integrity and direction as well as individualism. This works better if I can insure what I am showing and what I am saying match up, keep it professional as to be aware of my audience. Different people like different things so I need to remember to be aware of this when I am showing my portfolio and work. I have been constantly thinking about the network of people that I have around me, and will continue to have around me when I leave university as I feel as though this connection it really important to keep.

Print portfolio:

A print portfolio is still important as it has high value. People still like to see physical prints as they are able to hold them and move them around. It is important to remember to not speak until you are asked a question. When having face to face meetings, I’ve realised that I need to remember that the photographs should be speaking for themselves. When going to a portfolio review, I think the end product is really important to think about, I have learnt that people like to see the process and your thoughts about your final presentation of prints.

Digital portfolio:

A digital portfolio is important if you are travelling abroad for a photo festival or project. It helps when you are able to show an online portfolio to places that you are working on online, like an online magazine.

Portfolio content:

If I am going for a commercial job then I should think about past projects that I have done for people. When I am shooting for charities, this can be classed as a commercial job as I am getting paid for this and they are giving me a brief. Take work like this to interviews as it shows that I have been scouted by someone in the ‘real world’ and have already been paid for jobs.

What to consider:

The first page should be something memorable like a title, a few words that give my work a sense of identity and a head start. I should think about the editing of my images as it is difficult to show a whole project in a small amount of images. When talking to my reviewer, slant the pitch towards them and what they like to see. The size should be no bigger than A3 to make it portable and easily read.

When submitting images, I should always have a label on the back of the print including my name, number, email and website as well as the title, medium of print, size, edition. On the bottom put “unlicensed reproduction prohibited” to cover my back. You should print these on sticky labels.

Types of portfolios:

• clamshell box with loose polyester sleeves
• small box with loose polyester sleeves (don’t use these as they are difficult to look at prints quickly)
• Slip-case book with fixed sleeves
• Leather-bound books
• Printed book - online self-publishing, hand-made or assembled by a book-binder
• www.silverprint.co.uk

Photobook:

A photobook is a good way of physically seeing your prints within a story. It shows intention and the fact that you are able to self-publish projects through your photobooks. Photobooks can show patience and skill, it shows the employer that you take care and pride in your work.

James showed us a video of Rob Hornstra, a photographer who I have closely researched throughout my current project. I feel as though he is a really powerful photographer who is pushing the way that photography can be shown and presented. I have been looking at his work that he does finalising newspaper material as I feel that it is a really effective way of showing his work.

Taken from http://www.ahornmagazine.com/issue_6/rob_hornstra/essay_hornstra.html, Rob Hornstra’s “Do It Yourself” exhibition at our apartment in Berlin

I found this sort of presentation so interesting because it was something that I had never seen before, yet was really effective. In an interview, he spoke about how manageable and easy it was to present his work like this because he was able to make it as portable as possible and display it on walls wherever he went. For this reason, I really want to look into displaying my work in some sort of way like this so that it is portable and portrays the metaphor of ‘throw away’ words and situations. Like my project ‘Of Land and Glory’ is based off of with the current Brexit climate. This lecture made me think about the different ways that I can present my final output of images for the graduate show, but also as a budding professional coming out of University.

In terms of how I would portray my work through my professional portfolio, I would think about using a small box with my prints and publications that I have done so far. This way I can be particular about the select few images that I show to people in interviews. I think this would work well because none of my projects are the same, or have the same aesthetic feel to them so doing this would allow me to show my selected photographs individually.  I feel as though the clamshell box would work the best for me because it is easily transported and easy to separate my work to show people as and when they ask. I would print all of my photographs on the same paper type to insure consistency within my work. This is then divided up by the different publications that I have done i.e. Newspaper, hard back book and soft cover book. 

I am also thinking about how I would carry my business cards because I would want them to be protected and all in one place. In order to do this, I want to make a box that would hold the information and look professional at the same time. Below is something that I would consider doing. 

(https://www.max-ferguson.co.uk/about)

Max came to the university to speak us about his career and how he got to the position that he is in now. I found the talk very inspiring as Max spoke so honestly about how he got to the point that he is at now. Some of this hit home as he was talking to us about the struggles that he has gone through within the industry. He mentioned how he had started a magazine whilst he was at University, and that is the magazine that he is editor of now with a small group of his friends. I found this really interesting and influential because he said how he had left University a few years ago now but how he is still tirelessly working on the magazine which they have made so successful. 

Splash & Grab, the magazine that Ferguson is the editor of is a really successful magazine. I was really interested in how it got to the point that it is at now, which Ferguson explained to us in the guest lecture. He spoke about how it is a young photography magazine with the objective to promote new global photography. The team are ‘committed to publishing non-exploitative contemporary photography’. Ferguson spoke about how he felt like he was going to get nowhere when he started out as a photographer but with that in mind, he thought about starting this to be able to things his own way and on his own terms. I wanted to know a bit more about the magazine after hearing Ferguson speak about it so passionately so I looked it up online after the lecture. 

‘Our second issue investigates how the next generation of photographers are shifting the way that we look at images. As well as how they are adapting to changing spheres.’ All of these magazines concentrate on a different platform and issue in photography. I feel as though this is really important to address because there are a lot of creatives coming in to the industry and so highlighting these matters is giving them a voice for if and when things go wrong. This is also highlighting the younger generations of creatives within the field as well. 

Having Ferguson come in and speak to us was really helpful because he has recently come into the industry and actually got his name out there. I think that hearing from a younger photographer and creative in the industry is something that we all need to hear, especially as it won’t be long until we are in this position. I have recently subscribed to the publication as I am really interested in seeing the outcomes of each one, especially because I am so interested in layouts and type in relation to image. I will be using Splash & Grab for inspiration for my future works. 

I’ve found the whole process of creating a website quite daunting because there’s so many options for website platforms and designs that it can all get a bit overwhelming. In second year, I created my website on ‘Wix’ which was okay but I found it was very minimalistic to what you could do. I wanted to find a platform that allowed you to start from scratch, and easily to.

Looking back at this website now, I think it looks really unprofessional. The way the home page is displayed with a slide show of photographs looks too simple and boring. I’m not looking for complexity with my website but I believe that it would look a lot better and more enticing if the home page layout was bolder and more striking with the arrangement of my photographs.

The page layout below for my ‘landscape’ section of my website doesn’t look so bad as it is an easy way to look at each of the photographs. I was able to show them as full sized photographs without having to crop them in this layout which was a bonus but I still feel as though I wasn’t showing my photographs off to their full potential. Looking at it now, I don’t think that it is necessary to include text within each of my pages. I want my website to be minimalist, easy to navigate and effective and I don’t believe that this website platform enables me to do this, or even the layout that I have chosen to work with.

After this realisation, I started looking for other platforms. I researched other photographer’s websites to gauge what professionals were using to maximise their audiences. I came across a few that I thought were really powerful in attracting audiences attention but found that I really liked Yulya Dahl’s website and front page because it was so different to any that I had seen before. I liked how the photographer used a staggered design to switch up the photographs, I thought this was really engaging for an audience member. It was also clear that they were able to play around with their design a lot more and had a lot more choice for layouts. It turned out that they did their website on a platform called ‘Cargo’…

After looking at this website, I decided to look into Cargo myself to see how it worked and if I would get on with it okay. I needed a platform that I could continue to work with when I left university so I want it to be one that is easy to use. I decided to start working with Cargo to see if it was something that I could work on so I signed up for it and began building my website. I really liked how incredibly stripped back Cargo was. You are literally able to create your website from scratch when you are presented with a blank white page. This, I discovered, gave me so many options for what I could do and where I could go with it. Which I actually found quite overwhelming when it came to it and where to put my images. The photos below are the startings of my website on Cargo and show the kind of format that I decided to go for on that platform. I think if I were to stick with this platform then I would eventually get on with it but I just found it to be too much of a nightmare. This would especially be frustrating when I wanted to keep my site updated, as I intend to do.

I didn’t find Cargo the easiest platform to navigate around, in fact, I found it quite difficult because it was so open and the template, well it wasn’t really there. With that in mind, I decided to look at photographer’s who I am inspired by as I thought that this would be a telling option when seeing what platform they used.

So I looked at Cian Oba Smith’s website which I would class as fairly simple, yet vert effective. Searching through his website was so easy and I was able to navigate around it without getting frustrated. His home page featured a lot of his photographs so that you could get a feel for Cian as a photographer. I believe that this touch is really important to use as a photographer so that people can judge for themselves whether they want to delve in to your website further or not at the click of a button. His layout, below, is really simple in the way that he has literally just used square icons to show off his photographs which are all sized the same anyway.

Researching photographer’s websites got me excited to re-create mine because I saw all of the different possibilities for what I could use. I searched for what platform Cian used and discovered that it is ‘Format’ so I decided to look into the platform to see if it was accessible and easy use.

With all of this in mind, after much deliberation and searching for website platforms I decided to use ‘format’ which I actually discovered to be so easy and beginner friendly!

I am now working on ‘Format’ and finding it the easiest out of all the platforms but also feeling the most benefit from it. I think this is a platform that will be the easiest to navigate around and continue to work on so I am happy with the progress so far. I am able to create new pages but also follow their templates if I wish so it works really well for me, as a beginner to website design.

Andy Greenacre, the Director of Photography at the Telegraph, came in to university to talk to us about his successes and failures within the industry and how he got to the position that he is currently in. I took the opportunity to talk to Andy about my work and show him the direction that I had been going within my last project, Kinship.

Andy began his career in 1994 where he started working in the Magnum library as a picture researcher. He described this as being hard graft, working very long days but also mentioned how fulfilling and important it was for his future career. He spoke about how many connections he got just from being within the Magnum building and how much he learnt from looking at other photographer’s photographs. From the back of this initial job, Andy was asked to run the editorial department in London to get commissions from Magnum photographer’s, so he said that this was the start of something really exciting as he was able to not only work in one of the best photography sectors in the UK but also be in contact with some of the best photographer’s here too.

He eventually left Magnum in 1998 where he then started freelancing as a picture researcher in 2000. From this, and the work that he did within Magnum, he found himself  quickly get more and more offers to work for the Telegraph, Times magazine, Evening Standard, GQ. He said that he worked around the magazine houses learning the trade for a few years when in 2005 he went to the Telegraph for a 6 month job and ended up staying three years. Within this time, he was working on the Telegraphs ‘Ultra Travel’ and ‘Luxury’ extended magazines where he said he learnt a great deal about the industry and how much work is put into it. He spoke to us about this and developed on the point more by showing us a front cover that he went out to South Africa to shoot. He described to us all of the things that he had to organise before going out there and how much he had to take into account before even going on the shoot.

In his lecture, he spoke to us about the importance of portraiture and being able to actually shoot a good portrait as a photographer. “Portraiture, the key to everything – unless you want to be a still life photographer” he was explaining how portraiture is the number one genre of photography for getting photographer’s money and earning. He said how there was no point even trying to get into the industry if there is no chance of you shooting a portrait because there is little - to no - money in landscape photography. I think this will stick by me throughout the rest of my time of this course, and even throughout my career. The importance of having people like Andy come in to speak to us is second to none, purely because he has been in the industry for so long and knows exactly how it works and what succeeds. He mentioned to us that most, if not all, of the covers that they have published for the Telegraph has included a portrait of some kind. Mentioning how “Every story generally involves portraiture”. 

Andy then spoke to us about his job role of Commissioning Case Studies, which is one of his main job roles within the Telegraph. He said how exciting and interesting that he found it as he was able to speak to top photographer’s and celebrate their work. He also said that he has found graduate photographer’s in the past and asked his editor to publish/believe in them like he does. He spoke about how it is sometimes hard working him his editor as they have differentiating views a lot of the time and sometimes when he thinks publishing one person/photographer’s work would be beneficial to them, she doesn’t think so.

 Andy mentioned to us people that he had commissioned for the magazine, some of whom he had to persistently email and ‘pester’ in order to be part of the magazine but he also approached other people who jumped at the opportunity because of exposure to their photography. He told us that he would only contact people who he thought were really good photographer’s and had their own, personal approach to photography. This would be because they could put their twist on the magazine and commission assigned, therefore giving the magazine the other hand and a different approach to other magazines. The people who he particularly spoke about in his lecture were, two of which have been guest lecturers:

Kellingley Colliery by Jon Tonks

 Usain Bolt by Kalpesh Lathigra

 Concept dating shoot by Andy Lo Po

When having the opportunity to speak about my work to Andy, I decided to show him my book ‘Kinship’ which I have recently completed. I spoke about my excitements within the project and the fact that I managed to approach all of the subjects myself/had them approach me through the charity that I was working with. I spoke about the importance of documenting something like Cerebral Palsy in order to educate people and ‘normalise’ disability.

He said that he liked the way I used black and white photography to tie my three individual subjects together and said how confidently I spoke about my own work, saying how this would be a good trait to have in future works and pitches.

People he said to look into as they helped him form a good and extensive idea of photography and the different approaches to it:

• Look into ‘The end of the road’ by Paul Lowe
• James Mollison – research this
• NGO and charity photographer
• Holly Fernando – young photographer
• Harry Evans – editor of Sunday times : Billy Kidd (photographer)
• Tereza Cervenova photographer
• Gun Nation

Overall, I found Andy coming in really helpful in understanding the complications and positives of getting a job within the magazine industry. His opinions were so honest as he strived to give strong, positive comments as well as constructive criticisms. I found all of his comments really helpful and will take them with me throughout my career.

The work that I have been doing for Genesis Trust has been a fundamental part in the progress of not only my photography, but me as a photographer. Having to set up meetings via phone calls, emails and in person has given me the confidence and ability to talk confidently about my work and my practice. This growing confidence has been mirrored within my portraiture as I have become a lot more prepared to talk to strangers and ask for their involvement within my photography. I feel as though this helps with the work that I do for Genesis Trust as I have to be able to adapt my communication skills to match the clients. A lot of the people who use the charity as a service have had a difficult upbringing and past so they are often not open to speaking to strangers. Therefore, I need to be as approachable as I can in order to make people comfortable with communicating with me.

In the past, I have taken photographs of people straight away as I felt as though I would miss a moment if I didn’t. Sometimes this is still the case, but I have recently learnt through other projects that my photographs have been more successful when I have spoken to my subjects before hand as they are so much more at ease with me and the presence of my camera. I have used this approach when photographing for the Genesis Trust, approaching people and speaking to them first, asking their permission to take the photographs, and then when I feel confident that they are settled with me, I would then take their portrait. I feel that this is something that the charity have appreciated with me as a photographer as I am taking their clients privacy and needs into account.

Vitalie, who runs the communications team for the charity emailed me to say that my photographs were going to be used in their leaflets and posters. I was obviously so happy with this, but one of my requests for them was that they included my name on everything that they produced. They did this for the first two leaflets and posters that they sent out to people but the ones that I found afterward had not included me being the photographer. This is disappointing as it was the only thing that I asked of them so I emailed them explaining how it would be beneficial for me to have my name on things that I had done because it would create exposure for me.

I walked in to Boston Tea Party on Alfred Street in Bath to meet a friend and found these posters and leaflets on their notice board. I didn’t even know that these were getting displayed so I was obviously really happy and excited when I discovered that they were because it would be amazing for my exposure as an artist. The size of the poster makes the images more exaggerated and therefore are obvious when people walk in and read the poster. The only thing that got me down when I walked up to the poster was that my name wasn’t anywhere on there, which means that people wouldn’t see who took the photographs and I wouldn’t get an extra audience for my photography.

I will continue to work with the charity and carry on photography for them, their projects and at their events. In the future, I will push the fact that using my name means a lot to me and my photography as it is one of the ways that my audience horizon expands. I think that it is important for people within the creative industry to stand up for themselves and their work, making sure that they get as much exposure as they can.

Telling people that I study photography is often something of a taboo topic, something that I sometimes do not want to mention to people when they ask me because I’ve had such mixed responses when excitedly talking to people about my course. Everyone around me when I was growing up; my family members, my friends and even my teachers from school were all pessimistic about my interest in photography and how much I wanted to carry it on in the future. Just because I’m not as academic as other’s that I grew up with, I felt as though I got judged because I was going into further study with photography and felt as though I could and would make a career out of it.

Moving from my secondary school to a Grammar School which was highly academic and known for its sciences and outstanding academic grades had me doubting myself and my abilities to keep up with my peers. Why was I going somewhere that was going to judge me for choosing to study art subjects, choosing to continue with something that I absolutely loved? Because that is what it felt like to me, at the time and even now when telling people about what I study at University, I just know that people feel strongly about my life and my future career path.

I guess I would get through this doubt by telling myself that we’re all individuals and everyone’s on different journeys and pathways, no one was ahead of any one and just because my friends were doing academic subjects didn’t mean that they were guaranteed a job, just like I’m not either. I think this is why I felt Jocelyn’s tweet hit home so much as soon as I saw it. It was so good to see someone from the industry being so truthful and honest about their job and lifestyle. The tweets below are Jocelyn discussing her journey in photography and the approach that people have to people within the photography industry.

Vanessa Winship, a British photographer working on long term projects focusing on portrait, landscape, reportage and documentary photography often uses a personal connection to photograph in Eastern Europe and the USA. We were lucky enough that James was able to arrange for Winship and her partner George Georgiou to come into university as a guest lecture, and speak to us one on one about our work. This was such a big deal for everyone within the photography department because Winship is such an influential female photographer and has made moves within the photography world that people would only dare to do.

I was personally really moved having her come in because I was so inspired by the way that she has changed the dynamic of photography and follows her heart within her projects. She spends so much time with other people and trying to understand them and their communities before she photographs them which I found so inspiring. The way that she just goes and does rather than sitting around and waiting for something to happen is incredibly inspiring and I can only dream to be half the photographer that she is. Within the lecture, she told us a bit about herself and then moved on to telling us about her career.

• 35 year relationship in and with photography with her partner George Georgiou
• Vanessa is From Barton-on-Humber, Lincolnshire

Projects:

She Dances on Jackson –

• I believe this is the most personal work that I have made
• Beautifully poetic portraits and landscapes
• “I believe that magic is art and art, whether it be sculpture or anything, is magic”
• It was made in 2011/12 and published in may 2013
• Won an award from Cartier-Bresson foundation award so she could create this piece
• 2011 she was the first woman to receive the award and is still in 2018 the only woman
• This work was made based on a personal level when Vanessa discovered her father was incredibly ill…
• In amongst all of the preparation work, seeing people and talking about literature, I met a young woman who suggested I read a book which I discovered to be the worst book.
• I made this body of work in search of the American Dream
• Murder of a young African American teenager and beginning of the black lives matter movement
• Many of the people in the US don’t have a car, yet most see it as a necessity.
• My plan had been to work and follow my instincts based on my life experiences – a long chain of collections and connections
• US is a vast landscape – all of different histories and cultures – I can only ever say that this is my experience of America
• My experience of the US is a place where people yearn to connect
• Matthew Shepard – brutally beaten and left for dead
• We moved from place to place to try to comprehend what this project was about
• “there’s something exquisitely beautiful about America – a famous personality we all think we know”
• I carried with me a spectrum of second hand experiences, sometimes facts and sometimes fictions
• I lost my father over the course of making this work. There’s no doubt that the project was coloured by this. Each encounter shows a sense of vulnerability.
• In the book itself, there’s is only a single piece of text which is an encounter

Vanessa Winship:

“The letters and emails that I sent home were thoughts about what was happening with my father as well as the difficulty of making work whilst I was out there.”

“I made the picture of the Humber Bridge on my return when my father was very sick. It was too early in the morning to knock on the door and enter so I sat in my car and waited for the sun to rise.”

“As a photographer, I’m a bit of a geek in that I like to visit places that other photographers have stood and worked. I guess to see what they have seen and learn something from where they have stood.”

Questions:

How do you go about selecting people for your portraits, is it random?

“Well in this context, obviously I am following certain things. It’s a question of instinct, in this particular context, there’s no hard and fast rule. In a certain way, if I see and find somebody who somehow feels to have or carry something that resonates then I will ask. Most of the people that I take portraits of are strangers. Most of the time in my experience, people haven’t said no. I recently did a commission where I was essentially asking strangers to photograph them.”

What draws you towards black and white photography?

“Historically, I guess when I started out taking pictures… I mean you don’t become a photographer over night - it’s something you have to work really hard at. I didn’t have money but I could do it myself, at home, I mean when shooting black and white film. Black and white represented serious photography when I was growing up. What I am also trying to say is that these are photographs and real representations of people in life.”

If you were to speak to 20 year old Vanessa about your career, what would you tell her?

“I guess I’d say, to follow your instincts. And do what you need to do in order to continue on this journey of photography. In order to fund yourself doing your work and what you love. I think it is important that you - to me it doesn’t really matter whether you’re earning money at the beginning because you certainly won’t be earning it later hahahahahahah. Now there is a huge pressure for young people to approach other photographer’s. IT’S IMPORTANT TO FIND YOUR COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE THAT YOU CAN TALK TO.”

What dictated your travel through America?

“George had an opening at an area of America so we just started out there. I tried to be organic in a way that I wanted to follow instincts of people and places. In a certain way, we also followed the weather, in the first trip West and then South. It was following links and instincts. We have a number of friends in the states so we caught up with them whenever we could. It was very much an organic - it was madness.”

Overall, I found Winship’s presence in the uni really inspiring. I really liked the fact that we had such an amazing female photographer showing the rest of us that it is possible to make it in photography. I feel, especially as a female going into the photographic industry, that it is good to hear when someone is actually successful within the industry.

As it is our final year, we have been advised to start thinking about graduate jobs and what career pathway we want to take when we graduate in the summer. I have signed up for many graduate job websites including :

• Targetjobs
• Trovit
• Milkround
• The Dots

I am constantly getting emails from each of these websites with new graduate jobs appearing daily. I have been trying to think about exactly what area of photography I would like to go into as this has drastically changed since I started University. Since completing my project on the Street Pastor’s in Bath, I have wanted to work with charities and continue to work as a documentary photographer. To achieve this, I have continued to work with the Genesis Trust (a local Bath charity) as their paid photographer, as well as completing projects surrounding political and social-realism documentary photography. These include my project ‘Centenary’ where I photographed 100 women in celebration of the 100 year anniversary of women gaining the vote. I have also submitted a project working with Cerebral Palsy Plus (a charity in Bristol) as well as my current project which has me working with charities in Bath and Boston, Lincolnshire. I believe that all of this experience will be a positive step forward for me and my photography career and something that I will be able to include on my professional C.V.

Thinking about my professional C.V. :

James delivered a lecture to us discussing the importance of our professional C.V. and making it as precise and concise as we possibly could. We started to write our C.V.s all together during the lecture, just so that we would know how to start them and make them read as professionally as possible. I thought back to all of the photography jobs that I had undertaken in the past, not just at university but also in my gap year running up to university. I also thought back to the past exhibitions that I had worked on with the rest of the exhibition team as this would be something that I could include within my C.V. James gave us some tips to think about including in our C.V:

From this, I began to write my own professional C.V. to start to upload them onto the graduate job websites:

Lucy Slade

Mobile : 07824505183

Email : lucyjoslade@gmail.com

Website: lucyjoanneslade.co.uk

Profile

I see photography as a powerful platform for change, although I am based in the South West of England, the projects that I do take me all over the country through the gravitational pull of my passion for documenting lives and story telling. Much of my practice focuses around documentary and portrait photography where I focus on story telling through a journalistic approach. 

Professional Career History

Freelance Photographer : paid work with Genesis Trust Charity
September 2016 - present

Sports Photographer : paid work for Bath Spa AU teams

Clients 

Genesis Trust, Bath

Cerebral Palsy Plus, Bristol

Exhibitions / Achievements

Second Year group Exhibition :
Walcot Chapel, Bath
15th May, 2018

BA Photography Third Year Exhibition :
Curating and exhibiting team
Walcott Chapel, Bath
18th February, 2019

Bath Spa Degree Show, June 2019

Form Exhibition Graduate Show, June 2019

Exhibition Committee - final year degree show in London. 

Responsibilities includes curating, fundraising and setting up the exhibition

Background work

The Mall, Woodhall Spa 2014-2016

The Dower House Hotel, Woodhall Spa 2015-2016

St James’ Wine Vaults, Bath 2017-Present

Work Experience

RAF Coningsby : Photography Department

Skills

Strong knowledge of aspects of digital workflow, in particular the Adobe suite: Photoshop

Indesign

Lightroom

Bridge

Further Skills:

Final Cut Pro 

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Powerpoint 

Excel

Qualifications

A levels :
Queen Elizabeth Grammar School
2013-2015

BA Photography Degree :
Bath Spa University
2016-2019

References

Genesis Trust Charity : Vitalie Duporge

St James’ Wine Vaults : Mandy Connor

I need to work on my C.V. and talk to people about referencing and equally expand on the past jobs that I have done in the photography sector. I will look at my other C.V. for this so I am able to include the exact dates that I have been working in particular places.

Genesis Trust’s motto is something that I felt was really powerful when I looked on their website: ‘Supporting homeless and vulnerable people in Bath on their journey from crisis to independence’. From my experience with the charity, they do exactly that. All of the volunteers and workers who I have come into contact with there work extremely hard to make sure that they stick by this and help vulnerable people using their services as much as possible.

Throughout my time at the charity, I have been able to talk to people from all backgrounds, of all ages and classes and have got to really know some of the people who attend the different projects. It has not only made me look at life a different way but it has also taught me a lot about my photography and the way in which I shoot. Whenever I photograph at the projects, I always have to ask the subjects to sign a permission form from the charity, which means that I have to talk to the people that I am photographing a lot before I take their photograph. I have found that this has slowed down my photographic practice but in such a way that makes me think about what I am photographing and for what purpose a lot more.

I have spoken about my work for the Genesis Trust a lot as I am proud about the work that they do and the fact that I am able to be a part of it, the running of it and have my photography shown to Bath. I was contacted by Vitalie, the communications coordinator recently, after photographing for the charity for the past two years, saying that my photographs were being used for their leaflets and posters which were being distributed all across Bath. I even went into Boston Tea Party on Alfred Street and saw a huge poster with one of my portraits on it as well as their information leaflets on the side with all of my photographs in it. It was at this point that I felt really proud of the photographs that I had taken as they were going to be seen by thousands of people. This made me especially proud because it was for such a good cause and the photographs were going to help to help others.

Vitalie sent me physical copies of the posters and leaflets where my work is featured so I am able to have copies of it for my portfolio and future references. There are also copies of all of these on their websites and across the internet to reach wider audiences about the organisation. Some of these can be seen below, featuring my photography:

After photographing for them for two years, they emailed me explaining how much they valued me as being part of their team and that they would want to create a more permanent position for me. They explained how they would be able to now pay me for each of the shoots that I did for them. Of course I jumped at the opportunity because this would mean that I would now be classed as a professional photographer. The fact that someone had that much faith in my abilities was overwhelming yet really nice to hear and especially because it was a charity who was doing this. I have been wanting to photograph for charities ever since I knew that I wanted to be a photographer so this felt like a positive step in the right direction. I am so excited for my future with them and to be able to continually work with them and their projects. 

Cerebral Palsy Plus are a charity in Bristol ‘working with children and adults with Cerebral Palsy, their families and their carers. Our aim is to support our members so that no matter what their circumstances or needs, they can live as independently as they wish,  living life to the full!’ (I took this from their website : http://www.cerebralpalsyplus.org.uk/). I wanted to work with this charity in particular because it was close in location, so I was supporting a small local and independent charity and exposing the work that they are doing for people but also because it was a charity that hadn’t had as much coverage as many of the bigger charities. They were therefore a lot more willing to sit, discuss and share their ‘clients’ with me as well as allowing me to attend the events that they held for them. This added a new level to my project that I didn’t think I would manage to do.

In terms of getting in contact with the charity itself, I just sent them an email explaining who I was and what I wanted to do within my project as well as how I wanted to involved them within my project. Whenever I email potential clients, I always make sure that my tone of writing is as light and positive, but equally professional as possible as they are more than likely to contact me back with the same attitude. I have attached the email that I sent to Cerebral Palsy Plus below and their response:

I found that their response was really open and the fact that they invited me to meet them put me in a great position to follow through with contacting people. My next step, after talking with Cathy, was to arrange a time with her that would best suit both of us so that we could discuss my project further and she could tell me more about the charity and what they did to help people and families suffering with cerebral palsy.

Cathy brought along a lot of their past posters and leaflets from past months that they had released as a charity, including past events and case studies of people who have used the charity for support. She explained that they needed a photographer for the charity as she feels as though ‘photographic content’ is really important in building more of an audience for the charity. I showed her my photography Instagram to give her an idea of my shooting style and how I approach photography, particularly focusing on my project that I completed with the Street Pastors in Bath. We arranged another meeting for two weeks time so that she would be able to help me further and put me in contact with more people within the charity as well as their clients. She explained that it would probably be beneficial to me if I were to post something on their Facebook page describing what my project was about. This post appealed to people living with Cerebral Palsy as I wanted to photograph individuals and their families/carers and get more of an idea of what it was like for them living with the disability. I wanted to make the Facebook post as friendly as possible as I felt that this would make more people want to be involved within my project. I sent the post to Cathy and she posted it on the page for me:

From this one post alone, I had over 15 people, who were sufferers of cerebral palsy as well as some of their parents and other family members contacting me about my project and expressing their interest in being involved. This was so overwhelming as I hadn’t expected this response just from their own Facebook page. I had obviously used Facebook in the past to get people involved within my projects but because this was a charity I was initially unsure on the response that I would receive from people.

Cathy informed me that she was also contacting people after my meeting, people who they have worked with as well as some of her colleagues who suffer from Cerebral Palsy. This was such a positive response for me as I then had people emailing me, and contacting me first about wanting to be involved and wanting to know more about my project. Not only did I have people from the Bristol and Bath area contacting me but I also had people from the rest of the UK and even a mother who had heard from her son’s school in London about my project! This was so encouraging for me and made me a lot more confident in my ability to contact people and withhold a project like this.

The charity played a huge part in the finalisation of my project and I will be forever grateful to them for putting me in contact with the people that I photographed. I got two of my participants through the charity and had many more contacting me through the charity. Another of my participants came to me through the charity ‘Genesis Trust’ who I have been working with for two years.

The fact that I was able to get such a strong coverage from all over the UK, just by taking that first step and contacting a charity off my own back felt so good. I feel as though this is a skill that I will be able to carry forward with me throughout my career.