UAL Extended Diploma in Photography students Ruby Clarkson and Iris Raine have been featured in this years Stirling Photography Festival publication. The festival aims to foster community and “to develop skills, create opportunities, and build relationships through a series of events, workshops, and exhibitions.”

Speaking of the festival and why they chose to submit Ruby and Iris commented, “The Stirling photography festival is an annual event that celebrates the community through the use of exhibiting photographs within a book. This years theme was reflection in which the submissions could be either literal or abstract interpretations. To submit this work, our old photography teacher from school contacted us individually with the details to this festival. After considering the brief we each emailed in our own selected image that we felt met the requirements. As well as sending in the image, we both wrote a small paragraph explaining why we thought the image matched the brief.”

Iris’s image reflects on music, “The photograph that I submitted for this photobook was a piece that I made when reflecting on music. Using the alternative process of chemigrams I fabricated when listening to a Kate Bush album, I sliced these up and decided to utilise embroidery techniques to connect them into an alluring shape.

The way in which I have sewed these pieces together additionally reflect the emotions portrayed upon the album, such as tighter stitches symbolising tension, whilst looser embroidery represents the music’s whimsical qualities. The reason I chose this piece of work is because I feel as though ‘reflection’ played a very significant role in the creation of the artwork, and the finished image also presents ‘reflection’ through the use of repeated patterns.”

Ruby’s work apprached the theme through a more literal approach, “The reason why I chose this specific photograph for this brief was because I wanted to take a literal approach to the theme reflection. This image to me shows power and dominance and this is conveyed by the strong reflection within the water.

I was very proud I was able to create this striking reflection which will definitely draw attention to the intricacy of nature and the world we live in. In addition to this, when taking the photograph I felt that it was important to both capture and reflect the emotions I was experiencing at the time, which consisted of complete admiration and awe of the surrounding landscape.”

You can keep up to date with Ruby and Iris’s work on their Instagram: Iris: @pinkculia & Ruby: Rubyclarksonphotography_x

If you are a school leaver and interested in studying photography and college-level we offer a fantastic, industry focused diploma, find out more here.