A photography student at The Northern School of Art has achieved one of the highest accolades available to photographers around the world.

An image by first year BA (Hons) Commercial Photography degree student Lauren Fletcher is to feature in the prestigious 2020 AOP (Association of Photographers) Awards Book having been selected as one of the finalists in the category celebrating student talent.

The awards from one of the world’s most highly regarded professional photographers’ associations showcase the best in photography amongst students and aim to help ‘provide that all-important step up to the professional arena’.

By supporting new emerging talent, the AOP Student Awards are ‘an opportunity to get a first look at the potential stars of tomorrow’.

Lauren’s image features in the ‘Things’ category which was curated by Lee Smith, Creative Director of London and New York-based marketing and creative agency Lucky Generals.

She explained that her eye-catching shot was done after seeing the trend of images taken in a milk bath being experimented with.

“So I chose to explore this idea too. This image was just one of my favourite images from this shoot after editing, as it was well-composed with the objects placed round my sister’s head and the colour of the flowers used make the image more interesting.

“White is considered to be the colour associated with perfection but the floral accents used in this image disregard this by adding an imperfect saturated sense of life. The idea behind the image was to have a dreamy atmosphere to create a simple image that encompassed life’s imperfections frozen in time.”

Lauren, who is from Shildon in County Durham, said she was pleasantly shocked when she learned about the shortlisting.

“I never expected to be a finalist as I entered to get experience of what the briefs were looking for. Receiving the email I almost didn’t believe it as something like this has never happened to me before but I was happy that people were going to be able to see my work.

She added: “I chose to study photography after visiting an exhibition at Bowes museum when I was younger based on Tim Walker’s photos and became inspired as I wanted to be able to create something as memorable as he did.

“I chose to study at The Northern School of Art because it stood out against the other colleges and universities I visited, with the equipment available to borrow and use and the freedom to explore the style of photography we’re interested in right from the start.

“In the future I would love to be able to own my business or work in a magazine.

“My advice to anyone studying photography would be to tell them to keep shooting all the time, try out new ideas as you don’t know what images you could achieve from the shoot.”

The Finalists Gallery for the AOP Student Awards 2020 featuring Lauren’s image can be viewed here https://www.aopawards.com/696-2/

More of Lauren’s work is featured on her Facebook page @LFPhotosFB and her Instagram page @_lf_photos

The Northern School of Art’s photography course won its own AOP Award when it was named course of the year in 2017.  Further details of The BA (Hons) Commercial Photography degree at the School’s Hartlepool campus are available at this link https://northernart.ac.uk/study-with-us/hartlepool-campus/degree-fda-courses/ba-hons-commercial-photography-2/