Overview: I spend a lot of time online trying to find interesting work and it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Being able to see all this work online in one place makes my life a little easier. As I looked through all the material, I was often curious to see more of an individual photographer's work and being able to follow the links to their own web sites is a great bonus. As well as leading me to more of their personal projects, these sites often revealed more commercially focused photographic skills. Financing personal projects post-college is a key survival issue and it's good to see a keen awareness of this amongst graduating students.
Mid Cheshire College - Foundation Degree Contemporary Photography
Selector's Comment: Emma McKay's work is reminiscent of Tom Wood's 'Looking for Love' or Tobias Zielony's 'Curfew'. Crucial to her project is the bond of trust which has granted her access to the lives of the young people in these photographs. McKay obviously has some skill in this regard - as demonstrated by her other work 'Brat Packers'. In both projects she is able to provide a unique insight into the intimacies and energies of those whom she is photographing.
Selector's Comment: The paraphernalia of the office surrounds and frames Gawaine Meechan's images. In this transient environment - where even the appearance of computers and telephones become quickly dated - Meechan reveals the muted expressions and gestures of the office workers. In this seemingly benign and perfunctory world, the smallest detail - like the interjection of a hand clad in a leather glove - demarcates the boundaries between insider and outsider.
Dublin Institute of Technology - BA (Hons) Photography
Selector's Comment: Darek Fortas' ongoing work is, in part, an examination of his own Polish identity. His father was a miner and this has led him back to photograph where his father worked. He successfully uses this personal connection as a way of gaining access to make images and to re-engage with the miner's importance in the Solidarity movement that brought down the former communist regime.
Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology - BA (Hons) Photography
Selector's Comment: Tansy Cowley's lyrical approach to image making succeeds because of the strength of her images. I like the challenge of finding meaning in the disparate fragments that she presents. She moves between flash, a shaft of sunlight and the blur of a slow shutter to create a distinct vision of the world as she finds it.
Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology - BA (Hons) Photography
Selector's Comment: Dorje de Burgh's images shift between domestic interiors and fragments of an unidentified city. As I peer into these images I notice more of the details: an American flag, a statue of the Virgin Mary, the faint glow of an ipod in the corner of a room, an embrace between two people. Out of these shadows, reflections and unexplained characters it is hard to discern the imagined from the real and the photographer succeeds in unsettling the viewer with a creeping sense of uncertainty.
John Duncan is an Editor at Source Photographic Review. In addition to his duties at Source John is also a practising photographer in his own right with a string of solo and group exhibitions to his name. His recent project 'Bonfires' was published by Steidl in 2008. John was also a jury member for Fire's 'Propeller' award 2011.
