To accompany this year's submissions Source has asked a number of respected figures from
the world of photography to select their favourite sets of images from all the work submitted.
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Special Guest Selection by: Emma Bowkett Picture Editor, Financial Times & FT Weekend Magazine Overview: As a photo editor I am always looking for new photographers to work with, so it has been a wonderful experience for me to review the diverse scope of portfolios submitted for this year's Source Graduate Photography Online. It has been exciting to see topical and complex subjects approached in fresh and intelligent ways. It appears that documentary/photojournalism is still riding high, followed closely by staged and conceptual photography. Many of the projects shown here are a marrying of both genres. While exploring these projects I was reminded of the challenges facing photographers' to make strong and visually arresting work that, in addition, provides narrative engagement. It can be a hard balance to strike. I have been asked to select just six projects but I thank you all for sharing your work. |
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Plymouth University - BA (Hons) Photography
Selector's Comment: 'Like a Burying of Treasure' is a project about the housing crisis in London. Till's wonderful, visually seductive sculptural installations are underpinned with all the tension and frustration being felt within contemporary urban society. Utilising everyday minimalist objects and materials in a gallery setting, he allows them to perform for his camera. Chairs balancing precariously, metal stabbing through fabric, Till eloquently communicates this topical subject in rich and innovative ways which are seductive and challenging. |
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University of South Wales, Newport - BA (Hons) Documentary Photography
Selector's Comment: 'Duelos y Quebrantos' is Sebastian Bruno's journey of self-discovery through the region of Castilla La Mancha by taking on the persona of Don Quixote. Black and white, high contrast pictures, often stripped of context, create a narrative of ambiguity in order to confront themes of tradition and modernity. Inhabitants, often elderly are expertly sequenced with images of costume and performance, giving a raw but also touching insight into human relationships and values in the region. Mesmerised, I am left wanting to see more. |
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Edinburgh College of Art - BA (Hons) Photography
Selector's Comment: An interaction between photographer and subject, portraiture is one of the most challenging of the photographic genres. In her beautiful, colour-saturated photographs, Mairéad Keating captures children at a youth club in Edinburgh. Shooting in natural light, her carefully observed portraits are open to her protagonists' performance in front of her camera. While her subjects display defiance in their body language and pose, Keating's confident staging and composition retains a keen sense of her authorship. |
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Middlesex University - BA (Hons) Photography
Selector's Comment: Executing a news story for the first time is a challenge. Inevitably over time, topics need to be re-visited and it is my role as photo editor to find innovative, compelling new ways of story telling. Melissa Arras's project about refugees in Calais demonstrates this perfectly. Her measured approach is visually arresting. Her powerful faceless portraits have a de-humanising effect and make for uncomfortable viewing. Stark, deadpan still-life pictures add to the feeling of isolation, tension and uncertainty. The strength of this project is in what she does not reveal. |
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Ulster University - BA (Hons) Photography
Selector's Comment: Eimear Campbell's use of non-native plants housed in modern offices to explore negative connotations surrounding the subject of migration in Northern Ireland is clever and concise. With her observational eye, she makes pictures of ubiquitous organisms appear exotic and awkward in contrast to the banality of their environments. These life forms denote a sense of 'otherness' and alienation reflected in discourse about migration. |
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University of South Wales, Newport - BA (Hons) Documentary Photography
Selector's Comment: Using the butterfly collection inherited from his grandfather as a springboard, Blease's personal project is an intriguing examination of power and control in colonial Africa. In exploring the techniques to capture and catalogue butterflies Blease reveals a stark and thought provoking typology of imperial rule. |
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Emma Bowkett is Director of Photography at the Financial Times Weekend Magazine and a visiting lecturer. She regularly participates at international portfolio reviews, festivals, art fairs and awards, to include an FT special supplement and day of events as part of Photo London. Emma has a masters degree in Image and Communication from Goldsmiths University London. After graduating, she took an internship at the V&A Word and Image department, before working for two years as first assistant to a commercial London photographer. She joined the FT Weekend Magazine in 2009 and was involved in the relaunch in 2010. |
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