it was possible to bring time itself to a halt, to freeze the stream of moments, to choose one instant and keep it on record forever.
EDWARD LUCIE SMITH 1978
Introduction The students feel that the course has opened their minds and given them the motivation to investigate creative ideas more fully. I certainly feel that it’s about lighting a spark and not just about ticking boxes. The students are central to the development of the course and have built on the successes from the previous years and I think that every year the students produce something special. The course allows students to progress from HND at college to gain a degree in Commercial Photography in just one year. It combines practical photography with key activites in relation to business start up, theoretical and contextual study, and is delivered jointly by Gray’s School of Art and Aberdeen Business School at the University, alongside North East Scotland College. The course is designed to improve photographic skills in a professional and student driven environment. Students have the opportunity to test their skills within a choice of supported topic themes that are linked to live projects and industry liason. The Final Major Project images features in this book have allowed for concentration on a specific theme, enabling students to develop a professional portfolio ready for promotion and exhibition.
MICK EASON Course Leader
This book has been produced for the graduating year of BA Commercial Photography students at Grays School of Art, showcasing images from Final Major Projects. May 2017.
1
Ben Cairns
2
Norma Cameron
3
Evelina Cassari
4
Niki Clark
5
Amber Dines
6
Lee Garson
7
Tracey Garson
8
Leanne Heron
9
Nicole Lazzerini
10 Elaine MacLeod
11
Natalia Masny
12 Siobhan Morton 13 Rebecca Osgood 14 Aenea Petrie 15 George Pullar 16 Sapphire Scott 17 Jamie Stone 18 Michaela Walker 19 Celia Weatherley
ben_cairns@yahoo.co.uk 07851225434
My project is an investigation of the natural landscape. Situated beneath Dunnottar Castle, the area is traversed by tourists and locals alike. Being next to such a landmark, the area I feel is often overlooked. Due to this I wanted to delve deeper, to show the lesser seen elements it had to offer. In particular, I wanted to concentrate on the permanence of the rocks, which far outdate their illustrious neighbour. I shot the project on a pinhole camera, as the softness associated with it would contrast with hardy aspect of the rocks, and the slow and methodical process it requires would allow me to further connect with the area.
This work has been produced to be featured in an exhibition for the Belmont Cinema ahead of a forthcoming “Festival of Fear” a ten day celebration of the horror film genre. The cinema will show a film a day and will include a variety of horror films from the early Universal films such as Frankenstein to more modern day fare such as Blair Witch Project. The project was inspired by my love of the genre from a young age where I was mesmerised by the hypnotic gaze of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula peering out of the tv screen. I have chosen to represent the films through the use of items that may be associated either directly or indirectly with the film and hope that some of the images will not give away the film too easily.
“You slide down in your seat and make yourself comfortable. On the screen in front of you, the movie image appears — enormous and overwhelming. If the movie is a good one, you allow yourself to be absorbed in its fantasy, and its dreams become part of your memories” normamevans@hotmail.co.uk @NormaCameronPhotography
EVELINA CASSARI
evelina.cassari@gmail.com www.evelinacassariphotography.com
My work explores the relationship between surrealism psychology and subconscious. With influences as diverse as Giger and Salvador Dali, new insights are manufactured from both simple and complex discourse. Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated b y art in all its forms. What starts out as yearning soon becomes corroded into a constant need to create images, paintings and photographs. Photography to me it is just a way to express myself.
NIKI CLARK aaskrew@gmail.com
Good things come to those who wait. Through this project I investigated through a visual medium a perceived reliance and addiction regarding the use of modern, personal technology and whether this inhibits or enables our individual intellectual and emotional growth. Has technology replaced, or rather dispelled our belief, faith and spiritual connections and as a result, limited our ability to create substantial relationships with one another and the environment in which exist?
AMBER DINES This work has been produced to be featured on the website of the Scottish National Hockey League.
The project was inspired by my partaking in ice hockey as a hobby from a young age with my brother. I wanted to portray the sport in a unique way, bringing my passion for the sport and my passion for photography together in this final major project. Ice Hockey is a fast action sport, this is a vital aspect that I didn’t want to interfere with, and so my images are similar to what you will see if you go to a live game, with a little extra something to isolate and focus on the players and the game. I hope that I have captured my passion and the players’ passion for this truly gripping sport.
amberdines@hotmail.co.uk
l.a.garson@icloud.com Instagram: @lee_|garson
The New Latin term deus ex Machina is a translation of a Greek phrase and means literally “a god from a machine.” “Machine,” in this case, refers to the crane that held a god over the stage in ancient Greek and Roman drama.
This work has been designed to be featured in BBC Focus magazine 2017 as a cover image. This project was initially inspired by current events in world politics, cultural issues, and designed to be part of a campaign which would promote the connection of cultures and countries through the message of technology aids us in staying together. This project initially was focused on the use of technology today and how it has become an integral component when connecting people over large distances. We have broken down the material spaces which separate us through our use of human created immaterial dimensions. Over the course of development, this project began to examine how and why we have developed superficial emotional attachments to our own creations. By mapping events, experiences in our own self time-lines we can begin to formulate an understanding of what draws our individual minds away from our bodies, and into the machine, into the Ex Machina.
TRACEY GARSON tsgarson1@icloud.com
‘A Post-Apocalyptic World’ is a popular theoretical concept which takes the approach of highlighting the destruction of the world after human intervention on the landscape. It aims to show how negative human impact on the planet has had a detrimental effect on the worlds ecosystem and how the damage to our environment in which we live has impacted on our society and everyday life.
Clean breathable air is often a resource we take for granted since our first breath at birth but what if the air is so polluted and unbreathable that we must learn to adapt to the environment? With Paramount Picture Studio as the client the idea of a world with unusable polluted air is realized through a short film introduction made of photographic still and time-lapse images and is inspired by popular culture within film and art on the topic.
LEANNE HERON
My work has been inspired by B.authentique online magazine. Intimate lifestyle is a documentary style of boudoir that allows my clients to remember what their bodies looked like at this time in their life. In this project I wanted to expand out of my comfort zone and find a style that I wanted to progress with as I try to set up my own business. I have tried to replicate a coloured film effect in post-production as I like the aesthetics this style brings to my theme.
leanneheron95@hotmaul.com Facebook: Leanne Heron Photography
B.authentique allows photographers to post their work and inspire others within an environment that advertises your work with the public through online galleries and social media. This style combines fashion and lifestyle photography into one genre. Creating a style that is relaxed and natural looking has been my goal throughout my project.
NICOLE LAZZERINI
www.colelazzerini.com nlazzerini@virginmedia.com 07415245345
With my project, the idea behind “The Feminine Side of Grunge” was to show dancers (although this was one shoot) in “grunge” style clothing dancing ballet looking elegant to show a contrast in the styles of what the majority of people portray both styles as. I’ve always been inspired by the fashion of the 90s as it was the attitude side to the clothing that I love.
ELAINE MACLEOD
laineyv123@hotmail.co.uk
This project was inspired by the work of photographer Sally Mann and is largely based on contemporary documentary photography. I endeavour to capture family life as it occurs, by photographing family life through the big picture, the small details and every emotion. This body of work is very personal. Intrinsically, it is about motherhood and documents the unconditional love I have for my two boys and the bond we share. On another, important level, it portrays my boys’ close relationship with each other. During the process of creating this project my camera was always to hand, from the moment we woke up to the moment we went to bed. Nothing was planned and the boys were never directed. Every frame captures family life as it occurred, including the highs and the lows; the laughter and the tears; the fun and the chickenpox! The few images shown here, are a very small selection of the hundreds of images I took during the process of creating this project. The entire portfolio is used as an example of work I offer my clients.
NATALIA MASNY
nataliamasny22@gmail.com 07856650799
This work has been produced to be featured as an advertisement for Cruse Bereavement care. The project was inspired by the work called ‘The sleep of the Beloved’ of a German Photographer Paul Schneggenburger which had represented the movement of couples by sleeping which resulting images were ghostly, lovely, and intimate.
SIOBHAN MORTON
wee.siobhan@hotmail.com
For my final major project, the Robert Gordon University Cheerleading Team have required my services to produce a nude calendar for the upcoming academic year. This would be sold to friends, family and students to raise funds for their team as well a local charity of their choice. The project was influenced by the 2003 comedy ‘Calendar Girls’, as the images I have produced would be shot in a traditional portrait and quirky manner. Although this traditional photography is what the client was looking for, I wanted to take a fine art approach to the classic ‘calendar girl’ portraits and focus on a deeper meaning. I wanted to concentrate half of my project on body positivity, and the exploration of the female figure, addressing shape and structure as well as helping women value the body that they have.
REBECCA OSGOOD rebecca_osgood@yahoo.com
Tin Tabernacle buildings once provided an important community foundation. Few remain as places of worship and many have ‘at risk’ status. I have sought to preserve the diminishing Tin Tabernacles found within Scotland and demonstrate their distinctive charm through the medium of photography. My aim is to catalogue and illuminate the variations and similarities in the Tin Tabernacle design type. Displaying the images together emphasises the differences in character which each structure possesses while encouraging comparisons in form and function.
Taking inspiration from current photographers such as Mark Pacura and Ben Sasso, the work within this project not only focuses on capturing images of not solely couples, but capturing the feeling and emotion of that moment in time. In current times clients have a desire for more than just simple, posed images to display upon the walls within their homes, but also exciting, unique photographs which will represent them a certain way on social media such as Facebook and Instagram. The introduction of these social networks has changed the needs of clients for photographers and allows us to capture personality and sentiment in a way that was not previously necessary. The images captured stray from the traditional formal images of the past, and instead form relationships between the couples and the landscapes they are within.
AENEA PETRIE aeneaphotography@gmail.com www.aeneaphotography.com
and given them the motivation to investigate creative ideas more fully. I certainly feel that it’s about lighting a spark and not just about ticking boxes. The students are central to the development of the course and have built on the successes from the previous years and i think that every year the sstudents produce something special.
GEORGE PULLAR
This work was inspired by a talk from Nuno Sacramento on Deep Mapping. This touched on work from William Least-Heat Moon and David J Dodenhamer. The project is for the Council to promote the North East and how lucky they are to have such beautiful sites on their doorstep. Using Macro Landscapes to get people back in touch with nature and their natural surroundings by making them look deeper and closer to their environment. The more people look and touch the more likely they will be too protect and care for their nature.
studio@gpapertures.com www.gpapertures.com
SAPPHIRE
Celebrating self empowerment, diversity & individuality. We are committed to inspiring change & creating conversations through our values.
SheHimHer Magazine was a project created with the simple objective of raising awareness to issues such as feminism (equality for all) and female empowerment. I believe that it is possible to live in a world where human rights mean equal rights for everyone, extinguishing hate and prejudice. I read interviews with singer/ songwriters where they say they feel so much emotion writing a special song because it is a part of who they are. That is what I want from this project, I want it to be clear that this is a part of me, how I feel, what I fight for. I want it to have emotion and evoke people who read it. I want them to see the world from my eyes and most importantly, from the eyes of all the strong women featured in this magazine.
sapphirescott15@gmail.com
We promote acceptance for equality & uniqueness in a world where we are conditions to oppress what we do not understand
JAMIE STONE
jamie.stone1996@hotmail.com
michaelawalker95@live.co.uk
MICHAELA WALKER Inspired by minimalism in photography and food basics/ingredients. There is an art in taking a subject and stripping it back to a simpler form and appreciating it for what it is, or presenting it in such a way that it would not normally appear. In my project, I have taken the subject matter and used my studio set-up to manipulate it and create scenarios that would never naturally exist. I have also delved into other aspects of minimalism with a more artistic approach. Food photography in general can be generic and repetitive so the main aim is to experiment with different techniques and use my creative nature to develop a strong set of images that covers a broader scope.
CELIA WEATHERLEY
This work has been produced to feature in an advertising campaign for The Scottish Wildlife Trust with the aim to promote wildlife conservation. The project was inspired by the theme of the Anthropocene era. This project also has images worked on in post processing with double exposure techniques, which have been inspired by the surrealist movement. These images look to replace parts of the animals with manmade structures to give a surreal, unnatural appearance, which in turn makes a comment on the affects of the Anthropocene era.
celiaweatherley@me.com celiaweatherley.wix.com/mysite
UCAS: W641 UNDERGRADUATE +44 (0) 1224 262728 ugoffice@rgu.ac.uk
This one-year course has been designed to build and expand on the knowledge and technical skills gained during an HND in photography. Projects undertaken will test the intellectual and creative application of ideas. Students are introduced to new business concepts to develop their abilities in team and individual projects. A contextual studies programme, which provides a strong theoretical and cultural framework to support commercial practice, underpins this course. Students also have the opportunity to take elective modules that allow articulation to BA (Hons) Communication Design, to specialise in the photography pathway.
After completing the course, students have gone on to start new photographic businesses and gain employment both locally and nationally within the creative industries. Students have re-located to London to work with major fashion photographers, whilst others have set up new magazines. Graduates have also gone on to work within education as technicians and lecturers, and a percentage of students have now articulated to the BA (Hons) Communication Design (Photography) course at Gray’s.
The course is taught collaboratively by Gray’s School of Art, North East Scotland College and Aberdeen Business School and is an innovative approach to course design andthe integration of business and creative practices.
GEMENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Commissioned by: Mick Eason m.eason@rgu.ac.uk
gmail.com
Designed by: Cal Docherty caldochertydesigner@gmail.com
eir help:
We’d like to thank for their help:
Course Team Welsh, Iain ddock, Nicola , Marie Simpson).
Communication Design Course Team (David Crossen, John Welsh, Iain Morrison, Cameron Craddock, Nicola Watson, Annette Murray, Marie Simpson).