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GRADUATE
PHOTOGRAPHY
ONLINE 2025

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

Raquel Villar-Pérez

Academic, Curator & Writer

raquelvillarperez.com

It has been a refreshing journey to review this year’s BA photography graduates’ final projects. The themes explored were varied, and the approaches to photography and visual storytelling, were engaging and thought-provoking. In selecting my six choices, I focused on projects that resonated with me at an emotional level. Technical execution was secondary, and I prioritised a balance between form and concept. I was specially attracted to projects that surprised me because of the subject matter or because of how images had been produced. One element that really caught my attention was the number of works that embraced Artificial Intelligence (AI). Most of them have used the tool, not so much for image-making but rather, to enrich their project conceptually. This creative and thoughtful turn puts the focus on the positives and contributes to dispel some of the scepticism surrounding AI in the photography world. Overall, I was very pleased with the talent and vision of this new generation of photographers, and I wish them all the best in their creative journeys ahead.

Selected Photographers:

Eliza Stephens

Selector's Comment: I find really interesting the way the photographer integrates AI into Phantom Mirror. The use of AI in photography has risen much debate in recent years, to the point where software that identifies AI generated images has been developed and AI generated images have been banned from entering contests and open calls. In Stephens’ case, the emphasis of AI is placed into a mentorship of sorts, which helps the photographer with the development of a visual essay on her mother’s progressive dementia, while it also assists as coping mechanism.

Marlena Walach Szejka

Selector's Comment: There’s a sweet degree of playfulness in this work while it addresses an uneasy topic, due to the lack of knowledge and public understanding of neurodiversity. The photographer wittily connects the invisibility to which neurodivergent people are rendered within society, and the popular game of ‘Hide and Seek’ amongst children. I am always captivated by how artists bring humour and play into their work to tackle difficult themes, and I find Szejka’s photographs are a good example of this. Her images are extremely tender and touching, while they also bring a smile to your face.

Heidi Reece

Selector's Comment: I find Dear Uncle Eddy to be a quiet reflection on, what's becoming, our reliance on AI and its failure. The story functions as a warning of sorts. While the protagonist turns to AI to solve their obsession with photography, AI’s counsel does not always work. The combination of bright colours and black and white photographs, talk to different mental health states and emotions as lived by the main character, while notes of humour and play celebrate the tangibility of photography to find comfort.

Eva Groseva

Selector's Comment: Groseva’s Free Form is an ode to young carefree women. The vibrant use of colour along with an adept and expressive use of flash photography, the photographer captures happiness, spontaneity, and the unleashed spirit of youth. The images convey joy, play, liveness, vitality, and invites the audience to time-travel and re-live a time where they experienced a life free of constrains and worries. Free Form feels like a burst of fresh air where imagination reigns and where rigidity and concerns have no space left.

Sze Man Chan

Selector's Comment: I chose Sze Man Chan’s project because I find they make a very powerful use of appropriated newspapers, photography, images from magazines, and archival material to address the complex political situation of Hong Kong. They form a fragmented narrative that reflects on the violence of colonialism, the mismanagement of postcolonialism, forced migration, and intergenerational trauma. Celebratory images are combined with sombre photographs in red tones that reveal the hostile reality of a country that after being decolonised, witnesses how its freedom is abruptly taken away.

Elia de Leon

Selector's Comment: Thin Bloodline uses thin thread and embroidery to discuss borders, migration, identity, and family binds. Elia de León approaches these themes from various angles. On one hand, they intervene enlarged family photographs printed on material on which she embroiders what resembles the wall separating Mexico and the US. Following the same strategy, de León obscures the faces of family members in the photographs rendering them anonymous. Only one little girl’s face remains unsewn, also raising questions about visibility vs invisibility, protection vs exposure, documented vs undocumented.

Selection by Michael Itkoff ▸
Publisher, Daylight Books

Selection by Siân Addicott  ▸
Director, Ffotogallery Wales

View Submission Guidelines  ▸