The past few months have been extremely hectic, particularly with regards to A-Levels however I am pleased to say I got the grades I needed and have made it in to Falmouth University to study Marine and Natural History Photography!
For most of my childhood I hated education and so the idea of University was pretty much off the list. Why would I want to spend another 3 years in education when i’ve never really enjoyed it?
When I first heard about this course from a friend I was blown away. It was September last year and everyone had just begun the process of applying. I was 50/50 about whether or not I should even just try and apply somewhere and see how I feel. I began going to open days at universities focusing predominantly on the photojournalism and press & ed side of things. Sitting here now I’m not too sure why I was looking at those courses and that became apparent when I sat and listened to Jim Lowe, a lecturer from the MNHP course. I instantly fell in love with it. For me a straight BA Photography degree doesn’t interest me. I already knew what I liked to photograph (wildlife and the great outdoors) so I didn’t want to spend a lot more time photographing in the studio.
Since I began my application for university last September, the time has just flown. I still, even ten days in, wake up and can’t believe I am now a university student…I still feel like i’ve just left school!
After the initial application was processed I received work I had to complete and send back to them. The task was to tell a story of an area through images. Thinking of a place to photograph was pretty easy for me as I have been walking my dog on a particular common for 7 years and so I decided to tell the story of Ludshott common.
Above were only a few examples from my mini project. After submitting these I then received a date for an interview in which I had just over a month to prepare a portfolio…the pressure was on!
Within the month of being given the date I was fortunate enough to meet the incredible wildlife photographer Heather Angel (blog post is up so have a little look on my blog and you will see it- yes I did just plug my own work oops!). This was extremely useful being able to have a professional in the field of work I want to do as a career take a look at my work and give me lots of useful information.
When it came to the actual interview I really didn’t know what to expect however my interviewers were really friendly which made me feel at ease and they must have liked my work as I got the offer back in February only a couple of days after the interview took place!
Between then and now there has been a LOT of stress and mixture of emotions however I think I can say that all the hard work and stressing was worth it as I am a couple of weeks into university and loving it. I don’t think there could be a better location to be doing a course such as this one.
Many of the photos featured in my portfolio you will have seen on my blog however some hopefully you won’t have. I did about 18 prints so these are just a few.
Thanks for reading and take care,
A x
