PHOTOGRAPHY BTEC NATIONAL DIPLOMA L3
YR1 | YR2 | STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY EVENING CLASS
Here in Dudley, our students’ journey towards professional image-making has seen them seeking to find their own creative voice, whilst building meaning into their photography, growing in confidence, becoming a supportive community, learning to articulate their work as well as dealing with responses to their work, all whilst maintaining enthusiasm, inspiration, and motivation.
We have sought to promote kindness, community, and diversity. We have continued to strengthen our close relationship with Dudley Zoo, Dudley’s Gentleman’s Songsters and Dudley Remembers and Dudley Holocaust Memorial Day. One of our students is now Diversity and Inclusion rep for the whole college.
As well as exhibiting our diversity project at Dudley Town Hall last October, we have recently had the pleasure of working with local refugees from all round the world, who have made Dudley their home. It has become a local yet international collaboration. This has been our biggest, most important project to date – The Dudley Refugee Project – It was a year in the making – commissioned by Lord Ian Austin – featuring many of our ESOL students and other refugees, including a number from Ukraine.
Our recent exhibition at The Dudley Archives was attended The Mayor of Dudley. This work exposure involved students working alongside art photographer Anand Chhabra, who won the Mayor’s Civic Award for art last year, for his work with us, which involved a collaboration with Historic England, celebrating High Street Heroes, for our national touring exhibition, featured in the Guardian newspaper.
This year, two students worked in their own time, photographing with Dudley Caribbean and Friends Association, helping them with their own photography and raising awareness of the social welfare needs of the elderly African Caribbean community in Dudley.
During the course, we have raised money for The Royal British Legion, Children in Need and most notably for Ronnie and Friends, for whom we helped raise over £22,000 towards building a baby bereavement room at Russel’s Hall Hospital in Dudley, by abseiling off the college and climbing the highest mountain in England, in winter.
Frequently these students demonstrate their drive and aspiration by staying late and are often still working when the evening class arrive and sometime even help teach them. From our shared induction in the sports hall, on day one, onwards, we try to break barriers between curriculum areas and levels. We have visiting speakers most weeks, often old students coming in, to give back and inspire.
We aim to enable a supportive, intrinsically motivated community. My students don’t need commendations or stickers; they work through their lunch or volunteer to photograph college events at weekends. They feel they are working, not just for their own skill-development, personal experience or portfolio-building but often for the greater good.
Phil Brooks, course leader, photography
