Student Showcase: Megan Walden

“We’re warned about identity theft, but how far can this go?” – Megan Walden

Photo: © Megan Walden 2013

Photo: © Megan Walden 2013

As promised, we have some brilliant new student work for you this week! Megan Walden is currently working on a series of self-portraits, in which she performs as a number of famous women, evoking both their look and personality, by mimicking iconic poses and facial expressions.

Photo: © Megan Walden 2013

In this series, Megan questions the solidity of identity, asking that if we can steal credit card details and passwords, can we not also “steal someone else’s ‘image’ and their representation of themselves?”

More broadly speaking, the work is a comment on our appetite for instantly recognisable celebrities and public figures. In these portraits, Megan reflects our desire for iconic images of iconic faces, exploring the nature of identity while also, of course, having a great time playing dress-up.

Photo: © Megan Walden 2013

Megan Walden is a second year Photography student at Southampton Solent University. To see more of her work, you can (and should!) visit her Flickr page.

Joe Rose

Student Showcase: Francesca Solloway

“Is this really a utopia, or just another nightmare?” – Francesca Solloway

Photo: © Francesca Solloway 2013

Hello everyone! Today we have some more excellent student work for you. Francesca Solloway is a second year Photography student at Southampton Solent University, and is currently working on a landscape-based project, centred on the conflict between seduction and repulsion, utopia and nightmare.

Photo: © Francesca Solloway 2013

Her images offer new perspectives on sceneries which we may pass every day. By photographing them at the “hour of twilight… the blue hour”, Francesca transforms these sites into stages for eerie and uncanny experiences and her work simultaneously challenges and emphasises the notions of beauty associated with nature. This is achieved by fusing the rich, almost luxurious blue light produced at this time of day, with the dark, slightly blurred, claw-like tree trunks and branches, which pierce the serenity of each image. This conflict questions our relationship to nature, as our own fears and desires are played out projected onto the landscape that surrounds us.

For more of Francesca's work, visit her Flickr, Facebook page, or Blog.

And finally, be sure to send us your own work. We want to feature as much of it as possible on the blog!

Joe Rose

Co-Editor

Student Showcase: Rosie Knightley

Hello everyone! Here at Lost & Found, we are (and always will be) taking submissions of your work and it is one of our main aims to showcase as much student work as possible. So here we have it, our first submission!

"I enjoy working with the landscape because there is so much to work with. There is always something interesting and beautiful around the corner." - Rosie Knightley

Rosie Knightley is currently a second year student on the BA (Hons) Photography degree course at Southampton Solent, and sent some work over from a project she is working on:

Her work deals with the way in which "man interacts with the environment", specifically looking at ways in which we can protect and preserve it. Rosie has chosen to focus on specific areas in Basingstoke such as National Trust sites and places of historical significance and preservation. By doing this, her intention is to create a narrative of "our protected lands" featuring a variety of locations. Rosie also has a personal connection to these areas as she has lived nearby to many of them for her whole life.

All three photographs clearly demonstrate this idea of a relationship between man and the environment and you can see how each one effects the other. The above image is a good example of Rosie's intention to show how the structures of both nature and man can coexist, and all of the photographs have an ambience to them, allowing the viewer to reflect on the ways in which we interact with the environments that surround us.

For more examples of Rosie's work, be sure to check out her Facebook Page.

All images, Rosie Knightley © 2013

Joe Rose
Co-Editor