Each year as part of Graduate Photography Online we ask a number of professionals from the world of photography to review all the BA work submitted and choose their favourites. We hope this makes an interesting introduction to the project as a whole.
Anne McNeill
Director, Impressions Gallery
Source's graduate project has been a great way to see the depth and breadth of photographic work being produced across Ireland and the UK. It has been a real privilege to spend time looking at, and thinking about the work of the new emerging photographers of tomorrow. I have often stated that there are too many photography students in the world, making too many mediocre photographs. I have come away from this project with a renewed sense of optimism - I think that 'good' photography should be careful and thoughtful and I was struck by the level of passion and intelligence some students brought to bear on their work. It was, also, rewarding to see the myriad of approaches and scope of critical engagement that certain students were employing across all the different genres of photography. Whilst it is heartening to see that a sizable majority of students can make a picture rather than simply take it - I would still inject a word of caution that maybe there are too many courses out there, the jury is still out.
Selector's Comment: Since its invention, many have used the medium of photography to explore the relationship we have to the countryside - a tradition that Paddy Kelly has exploited in a meaningful way. His photographs of former IRA training sites depict a landscape scarred; yet not scarred, by a recent and complicated political history. There are no visible human traces of its previous use and as such he has created a dialogue between photography and memory.
Selector's Comment: Donna Toroni has produced a clever set of portraits that manage to express the uncertainty, insecurity and doubt many of us have experienced as adolescents. It is a meditation on the public persona and the private spaces of self, where the gestures - folded arms acting as protective shields - evoke a psychological sense of uneasiness and tension.
Selector's Comment: It is hard to associate the footballer's locker room with beauty; Georgie Gillard's gentle portraits do just that. Whilst, on one level this is achieved through the gender switch, it is also Gillard's photographic treatment that brings a sense of a insightful and subtle portrayal. Colour and lighting play their part in these images - muted hues coupled with directional and restrained lighting - add an ethereal and sensual quality to the confident gaze of these young athletes.
Selector's Comment: This documentary project, depicting the world of pre-teen male boxers, represents a view of childhood that is neither sentimentalised nor sanitised. Set within the gym; a space more associated with testosterone than masculine softness, these images capture a certain vulnerability. The lack of brutal drama adds to the subtlety of this work that presents quiet contemplative moments.
Selector's Comment: These sensitive medium format photographs focus on details and minutiae of a boy on the verge of becoming an adolescent. These quiet, contemplative images do not follow the usual compositional rules of portraiture and as such our eyes are drawn to gestures - a downward glance, an upturned hand - that present an uncanny sense of an emotional threshold.
Selector's Comment: Foreboding skies, desolate mud ridden foregrounds, a single abandoned palm tree all bring a certain melancholy to Catherine Coleman's industrial landscapes. These photographs are a point in time that not only touch on the collapse of the Celtic Tiger but also speak volumes about our global economic recession.
Selection by Susan Bright ▸
Independent writer, Lecturer and Curator.
Selection by John Duncan ▸
Editor, Source Photographic Review.
Selection by Tanya Kiang & Trish Lambe ▸
Director & Projects Manager, Gallery of Photography.
Blackpool and the Fylde College
BA (Hons) Photography
University of Brighton
BA (Hons) Photography
Mid Cheshire College
Foundation Degree Contemporary Photography
University of Chester
BA (Hons) Photography
Cleveland College of Art and Design
BA (Hons) Photography
University of Cumbria
BA (Hons) Photography
De Montfort University
BA (Hons) Photography and Video
University of Derby
BA (Hons) Photography
Edinburgh College of Art
BA (Hons) Photography
University College Falmouth
BA (Hons) Photography
University for the Creative Arts Farnham
BA (Hons) Photography
Glasgow School of Art
BA (Hons) Fine Art Photography
Griffith College Dublin
BA Photographic Media
Griffith College Dublin
BA Photographic Media (Part Time)
Hereford College of Arts
BA (Hons) Photography
Hereford College of Arts
FDA Photography
The National College of Art & Design
Certificate in Photography and Digital Imaging
University of Wales, Newport
BA (Hons) Photographic Art
University of Plymouth
BA (Hons) Photography
Portsmouth University
BA (Hons) Photography
Staffordshire University
FDA Creative & Cultural Industries, Digital Media
Swansea Metropolitan University
BA (Hons) Photography in the Arts