Headed by Rich Welch, our Master of Screen Arts: Documentary offers a two-year deep dive into the craft. Recently, our students were mentored by leading Australian portrait photographer Alex Vaughan in a workshop where they each created a visual portrait series with an individual artist, exploring the convergence of their lives and work.
Alex Vaughan is one of the leading portrait & documentary photographers of actors in Australia. Her work has been featured in Capture Magazine and has exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, where she was a finalist in Australia’s National Photographic Portrait Prize. She has won the coveted People’s Choice Awards at both the Head On Photographic Portrait Prize and the Sony ACMP Projections Emerging Photographers Competition. Vaughan has spent the last seven years travelling and working in Australia, the U.S., New Zealand and Europe on various commissioned and personal projects.
The students worked closely with Alex Vaughan to produce a photo essay comprising of six portraits of a single subject. Below is their work and accompanied by an artists statement.
Adam Finney
“The idea behind this selection is to tap into how we use space to aid our creative process. Here we see Taya Chani, a musician in her studio, her space. The artwork, plants, books and personal relics give an insight into her creative process.”
Michel Lawrence-Taylor
“What emerged out of my time with Martelle was purely a result of us both being open and vulnerable with each other. She expressed her frustrations of growing older as a female in our society. This became apparent when we were sitting under a tree and she explained how as a tree grows it becomes more beautiful, yet this same process of growing older as a female in our society sometimes isn’t perceived the same way.”
The Master of Arts Screen: Documentary is a unique two-year graduate degree dedicated to forging the next generation of documentary filmmakers, focusing on visual storytelling, audience engagement and screen business.
Applications for the 2020 intake are open until Monday 14 October. Learn more about the course here.