Source: Graduate Photography Online 2023 - MA/MFA Selections

Each year as part of Graduate Photography Online we ask a number of professionals from the world of photography to review all the MA/MFA work submitted and choose their favourites. We hope this makes an interesting introduction to the project as a whole.

It was very difficult to select only 6 entries from this year’s MA Photography graduates. I was impressed by the variety of topics and techniques. Many of the submitted works are related to their personal life as they consider what is happening around them and try to influence and raise awareness through their projects. There are many complex themes in the projects, and they provide new narratives and approaches that use different mediums to explore and connect their stories with the audience. In selecting my 6 projects I was interested in those that demonstrated breakthrough and change, while also bringing an emotional connection to the viewer through the work and sparking curiosity. I can see so many possibilities and further developments in the projects and I look forward to seeing more of their work in future.

Selected Photographers:

Selector's Comment: These works combine landscape and soundscape which echo each other and presenting different views of the locations. The different angles, differently focused and exposed layers, the varied lighting conditions over time, and the suggestion of movement combine in each work to make unified whole synthesis. The project reflects what the eye cannot see within a landscape photograph.

Selector's Comment: 'Fluid, Still' reminds me of FORMAT23's theme, What Photography Can Be. It raised the question of the definition of photography and my relationship to the photographer. Lotte sheds light on what it's like to be in the body, controlling the process of creating work and the fragility of its outcome. I like the divisions in the work that rely on light and reflection, using the unpredictable nature of photography and recombining images into a new form for the final work.

Selector's Comment: The overall title of the series 'The Passage' evokes the idea of a journey. The titles of the individual works, Altered, Passage I, Passage II suggests episodes in time and the swirl of history. But more than an archive I notice the theme of flow in the work. The project is about both the historical record and the imagination.

Selector's Comment: This project, 'Constellations' is about the production of small plastic beads and how they have been affecting the environment (reminiscent of Mandy Barker's comparible work about plastic pollution). I am interested in the research that has gone into Karen's project and her choice to use cyanotypes to make the images, they seem particulalry suited to the subject.

Selector's Comment: This is a nice documentary project. After looking at it I am interested to explore and know more about the female volunteers in the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). The images reflect the volunteer's working environment and the accompanying interviews capture their thoughts and emotions. The work questions the gender inequality in the RNLI, and the interviewees explained some of the reasons for this situation.

Selector's Comment: Joel Dixon's project shows the changing idea of what a photographic work can be. It shows two perspectives of a 10-year relationship: one of them is the conversational content and images; the other an abstract and impenetrable surface, which is more a formalisation of the feelings in the relationship. It seems to me to be a conversation about the relationship across the two sides of the work. The title a shadow that grows larger as the sun moves hints at the intimacy and desire in the relationship.