The University of Edinburgh’s Photography society is the oldest and largest in the UK, welcoming students, non-students, keen amateurs and complete beginners. The society is ever-growing and due to a recent partnership with Sony is now able to hold lectures and workshops by semi-professionals on skills such as lighting and Photoshop.
The society runs competitions twice a year with theme specific criteria, judged by society members. The winners’ works are then exhibited in a chosen Edinburgh venue.
This semester’s competition In Between inspired entries to explore the hidden meanings you may find when interpreting words and concepts. The categories – Generations, Freedom, Movement, Detail(s), Mood – embody the spirit of the competition’s title by their indeterminacy of meaning and breadth of possible subject matter.
There is a winner for each category and the subjects of each vary as widely as the titles. ‘The hopeful generation’, by Rory Dinwoodie shows two young boys on strike from school during the 2019 Global Climate Strike. Dinwoodie uses monochrome in the photo to simultaneously refer to a hopeful future and a troublesome past. This differs hugely from the Freedom category winner, Paul Kaemmerer’s ‘10 am’, which depicts a man passionately singing, his only audience being himself, and from the ‘Mood’ category winner Mert Kece’s ‘Still Life’, which is a boldly highlighted image of a man examining a painting. Each winner’s interpretation is undoubtedly individual and unique.
Although the winners had been announced prior to the exhibition, the display held all the finalists of each category, allowing spectators to appreciate the interpretative variety within each category.
Each winner presents not only an accomplished photograph, but a testament to the diverse possibilities of the photographic medium.
Images: Edinburgh University Photography Society
Freedom: ’10am’ by Paul Kaemmerer / Generations: The hopeful generation’ by Rory Dinwoodie / Mood: Still Life’ by Mert Kece / Movement: ‘midnight train’ by Ina Mangold / Detail: Dreaded Cuban’ by Leo O’Mahony