Nostalgia just ain’t what it used to be!

Photo exhibition explores our relationship with treasured childhood items

An Edinburgh College photographer has been asking people to take a trip down memory lane and rummage in their old toy boxes to share their most treasured childhood items for a new exhibition.

Simon Moorhouse’s Nostalgia exhibition features photos of adults with their favourite childhood toys and memorabilia, exploring their attachment and the stories behind the strong bond they feel with these items.

Nostalgia is on at the Creative Exchange in Leith until 5 June.

Simon graduated with distinction from an HND Professional Photography course at Edinburgh College, and now works as a learning assistant in the college’s photography department.

He stumbled across the inspiration for the exhibition when he was looking through old belongings and found the first cuddly toy that his mum had knitted for him, Charlie the monkey.

Simon (above) said: “I thought to myself, I’ve gone through so many moves over the past few years, from Sheffield to Edinburgh, and it has always moved with me for some reason. I never really knew why.

“That intrigued me a little bit, because we live in this sort of throwaway society where we’re quite happy to buy new TVs, new printers and everything like that. Back when I was younger we used to send our TV to the repair man, or have one come round to the house to fix it. Now it is so easy to throw them away and get a brand new one, but we always seem to keep these little trinkets. I wanted to find out why.”

Simon says the most interesting item he has photographed so far was an old chemistry set from the 1960s (above). He said: “Some of the stuff you would get in a chemistry set then would be illegal in a chemistry set today. The owner, Stewart, has stuff missing from the set. But some of the stuff, like the chemical powders, were just very peculiar. Stewart went on to work in science, he had the kit from being about four years old, he loved science and went on to become a science technician and work with children at a science centre. Now he’s an actor, but he still holds on to the chemistry set!”

Now that the exhibition has taken shape, Simon wants to expand the project outside of Scotland. First, he wants to go back to Sheffield, his home town, then carry on further down the country to photograph his connections in London and Cambridgeshire.

Simon is also keen for anyone with a nostalgic childhood item to come forward and share their stories through the Edinburgh College Facebook page and Twitter, and is offering a free professional photo shoot at the college for one lucky winner. Post a photo of your own item and tell us in one sentence why it is important to you. Simon will choose his favourite entry.

Nostalgia will be on show at Creative Exchange, 29 Constitution Street, Leith, until 5 June. Creative Exchange is open Monday -Thursday 9am-5.30pm and Friday 9am-4.30pm. Admission is free.

Edinburgh’s Oliver is Student Photographer of the Year

Edinburgh College student crowned Calumet Student Photographer of the Year

An Edinburgh College student has won the UK-wide Student Photographer of the Year award from photographic equipment company Calumet. Oliver Henderson, who is studying for a HND Professional Photography at the college, beat more than 1,000 students from across the UK to the top spot and a prize of £11,000-worth of photography equipment. Oliver is the first winner of the new competition.

Oliver’s photo is of a woman in a red dress under a spotlight on a rooftop, set against an industrial background. The judges praised the imagination, passion, meaning and flair behind the photo.

Competition judge and managing director of Calumet Photographic UK, Jon Warner, said: “It was extremely difficult to pick a winner as the quality of entries was so very high, but we felt that Oliver’s image (below) not only employed a high degree of technical merit, it is also an image of great impact, creativity and style. The use of light, composition and storytelling really set it apart from some very worthy runners-up.”

Oliver said: “I feel very proud and thankful to the people who have helped me to achieve this, like the tutors at Edinburgh College who constantly push me to realise my potential – although I feel I still have far to go. My inspiration for the image was something my brother once said: “fashion is pure fantasy”, which made me think of science fiction. I loved the idea of aliens spotting this beautiful girl and wanting to try and get close to her in the only way aliens can – it’s kind of weird thought process but there you go! I would again like to thank Calumet Photographic for having faith in me too.”

Jon presented Oliver with his award at the Canon Student Conference at The Photography Show at Birmingham NEC. Canon’s product intelligence professional, David Parry, also judged the competition, alongside professional photographers Rory Lewis and Tom Barnes.

Calumet launched this new competition in January and, over the two-month entry time, saw an exceptional response. Students were given free choice of topic and style, so the competition was open to landscape, portrait, lifestyle and abstract photographers.

The award is in partnership with a host of major photographic brands, including Canon, Manfrotto, B + W, Lastolite, Veho, Rotolight, Bowens, ColorMunki, DxO Software and Eizo.

The winning photo and all of the runners-up can be viewed at www.calphoto.co.uk/studentawards

Edinburgh College offers a range of photography courses, from introductory courses to BA level. Applications are currently invited for these courses and more than 900 other courses across the curriculum offered by Edinburgh College and starting in August on its four campuses.

Visit www.edinburghcollege.ac.uk for more information.

POCHEMU? Student documents Ukraine conflict

‘I don’t know if you can prepare yourself for what you see and hear’ – photographer Monica Holkova

An Edinburgh College photography student is staging an exhibition of images she shot of Ukrainian rebel fighters and refugees while covering the conflict as part of her course.

Monika Holkova’s exhibition is a documentary of time spent in and around Donetsk last year to record the effects of the conflict on the people of Ukraine. During her spell with rebel fighters in the war-ravaged area, Monica herself came under fire from government troops.

The exhibition – Pochemu? – Russian for ‘why’ – launches this Friday at the Creative Exchange in Leith. It features 36 black-and-white images of Ukrainian refugees and rebels, showing how they are living through a period of turmoil.

Monika, originally from Slovakia, wanted to cover the events in Ukraine for her BA Professional Photography course project, so arranged to visit Russia and Ukraine over two trips in October and November. She visited a refugee camp in Russia where Ukrainian people were living after fleeing the conflict. She spent time with refugee families, hearing their stories and taking their photos.

She also spent a week in Donetsk with a group of humanitarian workers as part of an aid effort for residents. Monika travelled with the group as it went round the city to deliver food and supplies, capturing images as she went.

The noise of bombs falling outside the city formed the soundtrack to Monica’s time in Donetsk, a city in which some areas were decimated.

Monika said: “I don’t know if you can prepare yourself for what you see and hear. All the time we were in Ukraine you could hear the sound of bombing outside the city. Most of the time it was far away but one day we were in the supermarket and the bombs sounded much closer. Everyone stopped what they were doing to listen but then started shopping again right after. For the people that was normal. They just had to live with it as part of their daily lives.”

Monika also spent time with rebel fighters, and was with a group in a small village a couple of hours from Donetsk when they came under fire from army forces. Army snipers pinned them down for almost three hours, and the group was unable to move from a safe position behind a house. The village and the surrounding area were also being bombed throughout this time.

She said: “Ten minutes after arriving in the village the fighting started and we came under fire from snipers. The rebels and the army were shooting at each other and the group I was with couldn’t move. We were safe hiding behind a house but we couldn’t even move a few metres to get into the house. We could see tracer bullets flying past. It wasn’t scary as you just have to make yourself think logically, and we knew they couldn’t reach us.”

The trip had a profound effect on Monika, who says she was treated with immense kindness by refugees and rebels.

Monika said: “It was hard to listen to some of the stories. People had lost everything, including friends and family. Their homes were destroyed and they didn’t know when the fighting would end. The people didn’t understand why there needed to be a war and they just wanted it to end. One older woman I spoke to remembered the Second World War and thought she’d never have to live through something like that again. Sometimes hearing their stories was too much to bear so I just had to switch off and concentrate on the photos.”

Monika is keen to go back to Ukraine to continue her work and may head out over the next couple of months. And when she graduates she intends to become a war photographer.

“I’m really proud of the photos I took and I’m pleased to tell the stories of these people. When you hear about the people affected by war on the news you don’t always remember that for every statistic there are stories behind every single person, and it’s important to try and show this.”

Pochemu? is on at the Creative Exchange from Friday until March 27 at Creative Exchange, 29 Constitution Street, Leith. Admission is free.

Students focus on stardust spectacular

Edinburgh College photographers throw spotlight on students’ winter showbiz special

A student photography exhibition celebrating Edinburgh College performing arts students’ winter showbiz spectacular is now on display at Leith’s Creative Exchange.

The exhibition showcases the college’s recent show We Are Made of Stardust, developed and performed by Edinburgh College students. Two HND Photography students – Tracey Largue and Sara Thomson – took the photos of the show that feature in the exhibition, showing off the vibrancy, energy and emotion of the performance.

We Are Made of Stardust, which featured HND Year 2 Acting and Performance students, was devised by lecturer Scott Johnston and formed using the cast’s own ideas and stories. The 30 young actors in training shared their personal tales of love, loss and life with the audience in performances at the college’s Perfoming Arts Studio Scotland (PASS).

Marjory Crooks, curriculum manager for broadcast media, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to see examples of the highly professional work produced by two of our photography students. The students on our various creative industries courses are encouraged to collaborate on projects to develop their practical skills and share their learning experiences.”

Scott Johnston said: “This was an incredibly successful show in terms of audience feedback which was universally extraordinarily positive. The cast all learned from each other by sharing ideas and experiences. This helped build the actors as a team, an essential part of working in any field but especially in theatre.”

The We Are Made of Stardust exhibition at Creative Exchange on Constitution Street runs until Friday 30 January, 9am – 5pm each day.

Edinburgh College is currently recruiting for a range of courses in the Creative Industries starting this month including evening classes in Digital Photography: Studio Image Manipulation and Photography: Introduction to Portraiture. For more details on these and other courses, visit www.edinburghcollege.ac.uk.

Students’ photshoots help families smile

Two Edinburgh College photography students have teamed up with Leith-based charity CCLASP (Children with Cancer and Leukaemia, Advice and Support for Parents) to give children affected by cancer a reason to smile by offering free family photoshoots to provide lasting memories.

The chance to carry out the shoots started after student Derek got chatting to his neighbour and founder of CCLASP, Valerie Simpson. As a way of helping the charity as well as furthering his photography skills, Derek offered to take pictures for the families that the charity supported. He then started carrying out photo sessions with his friend and fellow photography student, David Anderson.

One woman who is forever grateful to Derek and David is Claire Tasker from Kirkcaldy in Fife. After her little girl Jessica was diagnosed with Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), Claire says that CCLASP was a ‘godsend’.

While Jessica, now 6, has been in remission for the last two years Claire’s mum Kay was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer last February. With the family knowing that her mum didn’t have long after her diagnosis, Claire called on Derek and David to bring the family together for a shoot they would always remember.

Claire says that David and Derek were extremely good at making everyone feel relaxed and the pictures now decorate her house and have been given out as gifts to provide lasting memories of her mum, who sadly passed away in April at the age of 53.

Claire said: “It’s the last photos that we got of us all as a family. I was pregnant at the time so to be able to share that as a family just meant the world. It’s amazing to be able to look back and have those photos with my mum and with my daughter.”

While studies for their BA in Photography continue, David and Derek remain committed to working with CCLASP, photographing events and days out put on by the charity for children who are undergoing treatment or whose condition may be terminal. For the photographers, the family photo-shoots were a moving experience.

“It was a great opportunity to meet all the families, who are fantastically strong considering what they’re going through,” said David, 40, from East Lothian.
Derek, 35, from Leith, said: “We’ve met families from different areas, different walks of life. Their experience is very inspiring.”

CCLASP was set up by Valerie and Bill Simpson after their son Robert was diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of six. They started up the Edinburgh based children’s charity in 1994 to help support children and groups of families, to express and share the feelings, anxieties and the horror of having a child with a life threatening illness.

Photo exhibition at Muirhouse Library tomorrow

You are invited to our exhibition …

Borja Prada – a retrospective

with photographs from Muirhouse Photography Group

Thursday 27 November 1.30 to 3.00 pm

Muirhouse Library

Sharp focus: clean sweep for photography students

Edinburgh College photography students named UK’s best

Edinburgh College has scooped all the top prizes at the British Institute of Professional Photography’s (BIPP) UK Student Awards, beating off competition from the country’s universities and colleges. Two current students and a recent graduate were named the country’s best student photographers, taking first place in the three categories.

BA Professional Photography student Kinga Kocimska won the BIPP National Student of the Year Award, recent BA graduate Jamie Mellor won the Student Open Award for students who are not BIPP members and fellow BA student Sandra Vijandi won the BIPP College Award.

Sandra was also the runner up for the Student of the Year Award and another student, Antonio Castro, came second in the Student Open. Three others were also highly commended in the categories.

Edinburgh College curriculum manager for broadcast media and photography Marjory Crooks said: “We’re delighted that the emerging photography students from Edinburgh College are winning such prestigious awards in the industry. Their future commissions and careers will be greatly enhanced by this as they’re already building fantastic profiles while they’re studying with us.”

Kinga’s winning entry in this year’s UK-wide competition consisted of five images from her second-year portfolio, ‘Deceptive Mind’, which showcased her surreal, witty approach to her photography as well as her technical skill (above).

Sandra took her win and runner-up position for her portfolios ‘Unexpected Journeys’ and ‘Glass Houses’, which demonstrated her flair for fashion photography, featuring stylised, heavily art-directed images (below).

Jamie won for his portfolio ‘Remnants’, featuring shots of eerie hinterland locations (below).

Each winner received a prize of £500.

Kinga said: “I did not expect such an amazing distinction and I’m very pleased that the time and effort I have invested in learning new skills have already started yielding such good results. I’m really grateful for the tuition and development opportunities I have received at Edinburgh College. This award has motivated me even more to continue improving my skills and working hard to gain more experience as a photographer. After all, the biggest challenge of making my way into the photographic industry is still ahead of me.”

These awards continue a winning streak for the college’s photography students that includes five years of multiple successes at the BIPP Scottish Region Image Awards, culminating in 30 awards this year including Student Photographer of the Year and Professional Photographer of the Year. Former student Lee Howell was also runner up in last year’s BIPP Student of the Year Award.

Photography lecturer Jon Lee added: “We’ve been overwhelmed in recent years with the talent of our students and I’m extremely pleased they’re continuing to do so well in these awards. The achievement is down to the hard work of our students and also our staff, who come from a range of commercial photography backgrounds. Many of our part-time staff also still work in the industry, which means our students gain that essential insight into developments in the professional word and ensures they’re prepared when they enter it.”

The college’s BA Professional Photography course currently has 24 students, the HND Professional Photography 1 has 38 and the HND Professional Photography 2 has 34.

Septemberfest in focus

Last month’s Septemberfest proved as popular as ever, with over three thousand people attending the event. We asked Broughton High School photography students to capture the day in pictures – and the Septemberfest snappers have done a fine job!

Some of their images will appear in the NEN due out next week, but there simply wasn’t room for them all so I’ve reproduced over sixty of their finest here.

Enjoy, and thank you Hayley-Anne Amm, Hannah Cazaly, Natalie Drywa, Aillidh Gladstone-Wallace and Eric Vaskala!

Exposure: powerful images of mental health

Mental health issues have inspired a group of young people to produce a photography exhibition that will feature in a national festival next week.

Exposure is the first photographic event by the City of Edinburgh Council’s Positive Steps for Young People (PS4YP), and will be a highlight of the Scottish Mental Health and Arts Film Festival.

Basing their pictures on the festival’s theme of “power”, the young people at PS4YP have taken the lead and chosen 30 images that reflect their personal experience of living with mental health issues.

The images aim to stimulate thinking around stigma and discrimination, particularly in relation to people who experience anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression and social isolation.

Exposure will run from Monday (6 October) until Friday next week at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Dalmeny Street from 10am – 5pm– and entry is free.

Councillor Ricky Henderson, Health, Social Care and Housing Convener, said: “This is an exciting project for the people who are involved in the Positive Steps service, and a fantastic opportunity for them to show off their skills. It is a vital service that helps to break down the stigma attached to mental health, which can affect any one of us at some point in our lives.

“We are committed to delivering high quality care and support to the many people who will be affected by mental illness at some point in their lives.”

PS4YP provides personalised and supported accommodation in a safe setting to people with mental health issues aged between 16 and 25.

Whitespace Gallery to host post-conflict exhibition

What happens when war moves on? Gayfield Square’s Whitespace Gallery is to host an important post-conflict programme next month. The week-long event will feature a photographic exhibition, conference and the screening of human rights photojournalist Fiona Lloyd- Davies’ film Seeds of Hope.

THE Voices of Post-Conflict Project – a student-led initiative from the University of Edinburgh – is delighted to invite members of the public, NGOs, academics and students, as well as all other interested parties, to attend our conference and exhibition from 3 – 9 October.

Against the backdrop of a photographic exhibition, the conference, ‘Agency in Post-Conflict Societies – Perspectives on Issues of Gender and Agency for Women and Young People’, showcases various post-conflict perspectives and explores topics related to gender in post-conflict situations.

The public is especially invited to the film screening of ‘Seeds of Hope’, followed by a Q&A with award-winning director, Fiona Lloyd-Davies, on October 8th, 6-8pm. Fiona Lloyd-Davies is a renowned filmmaker and photojournalist who has been reporting on human rights issues in conflict areas for more than 20 years.

For more information and to register for events, please visit http://voicesofpostconflict.wordpress.com/

Picture Credit: Fiona Lloyd-Davies

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