Life through a lens at UCF’s photography symposium

UCF's Photography Symposium is fast gaining a reputation as one of the more prestigious gatherings of contemporary photographers and lecturers in the photography world.  It is also one of the most eagerly awaited conferences, not just by students but also guest speakers.

Attended by more than 300 photography students, speakers from every corner of the photographic world converged on the Photography Centre at the Tremough Campus to share their experience and knowledge at the four-day conference.

The symposium explored the nature of contemporary photography in this culturally rich and diverse digital age, the specialist knowledge required when photographing challenging wildlife and the responsibilities and nerves of steel necessary when photographing armed conflicts across the globe.

BA(Hons) Photography, MA Photography, BA(Hons) Press & Editorial Photography and BA(Hons) Marine & Natural History Photography all contributed to the event, ensuring that a wide range of themes and practices were represented.

Award-winning photographer and television presenter, Simon Roberts opened the symposium discussing his work as an editorial photographer and sharing images from his comprehensive project about the nature of contemporary Russia, Motherland and the pre and post production work required to publish the images in a book.

Jenny Matthews, who has worked extensively for development organisations such as Save the Children and Oxfam, discussed her current exhibition and book, Women and War, which gives a voice to the silent majority of casualties in the midst of war and conflict. Jenny left immediately after her presentation to catch a flight to cover the latest atrocities in Gaza.

Other speakers included award-winning wildlife specialists Chris Gomershall, International Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007whose work promotes biodiversity and nature conservation; Stephen Powles, who was short-listed for the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007 and whose speciality is photographing challenging subject, often at night and Jeff Goodman, photographer and cameraman, who works regularly for the BBC wildlife unit and has filmed a vast array of wildlife from snakes and polar bears to vampire bats and tigers.

"Having such eminent wildlife image makers contribute to our symposium is a mark of the success of our course," said BA(Hons) Marine & Natural History Photography Course Leader, Dave Matthews. "They bring a sense of reality and dedication required to work in this very demanding area of photography and filmmaking".

They were joined by landscape photographer Richard Page, whose work explores the changing notion of landscape through history and memory; Curator, researcher, interviewer and writer, Shirley Read, whose specialises in the history of photography in the twentieth century, feminism and photography on the edge between journalism and fine art; London-based German-born contemporary portraiture photographer and filmmaker, Melanie Manchot who examines the relationship between the individual and parameters of public space.

Research photographer Jean Baird, whose work explores the photographic mark as both trace and symbol; Head of Photography at Edinburgh College of Art who presented aspects of his work on the theme of Nonduality, David Williams, and John Kippin, an artist and photographer whose work pays allegiance to the traditions of pictorial landscape whilst focusing on contemporary and cultural issues completed this prestigeous line-up of speakers.

Mal Stone, Course leader on BA(Hons) Press & Editorial Photography said: "We are so lucky to have such diverse speakers for the photography symposium.  It was refreshing to see Simon Roberts' wonderful assignment on Motherland and to hear Jenny Matthews' describe her 20 years of work capturing the conflict in Latin Amercia, Africa and Asia focusing on the plight of women in the war zones whilst working for development organisations". 

UCF's Photography courses are located in the two-storey Photography Centre that has been designed following consultation with the industry. It includes hugely expanded digital and photographic facilities as well as specialist resources such as an electronic picture desk, all of which cements the College's position as one of the top providers of photographic education in the UK.

For further information about Photography Courses at University College Falmouth, visit http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/, email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 213730.

University College Falmouth is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the powers to award degrees in its own name.  It has two campuses in Cornwall - at Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns, and jointly manages with the University of Exeter) - and a third campus at Totnes in Devon, following its merger with Dartington College of Arts in 2008.

This merger created a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth's expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington's expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing.  The Devon-based courses will relocate to a new, high-specification Performance Centre at Tremough in 2010, paving the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall by 2012, that will be unique to the South West. 

The College is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union, the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall County Council.

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