New scheme offers professional development to aspiring photographers

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A new initiative is offering aspiring photographers based in Wales professional development and the chance to exhibit their work.

The artist led social enterprise Cardiff MADE is launching the scheme, offering a unique opportunity to  four aspiring photographers of any age.

The Higgins Photography Initiative will run alongside ffotogallery ffocws scheme for emerging graduate photographers to continue developing their photographic practice.

The project is open to applicants who aren’t currently in education and who can demonstrate engagement with photography and lens-based media and hope to continue and develop their photographic practice to a professional level.

The initiative was inspired by the work of Tom Higgins, an aspiring photographer whose recent exhibition Let Us Now Praise Famous Bins, presented a commentary on human inequality through humour and witty observation, with a bin as the human surrogate.

Drawing on a pool of expertise, from professional photographers and educators Cardiff MADE will steer the selected participants towards presenting a body of work at ffotogallery in November 2023 alongside photography graduates.

They will then be supported to develop their career path and practice through a tailored, six-month professional development programme which includes a series of talks, peer critiques and mentoring by professional photographers.

Talks

The open call runs from 15 April to 4 June and the launch will be followed by a series of talks to introduce the different viewpoints and work of the professional photographers who will be acting as mentors to the scheme participants.

• Saturday 22 April, 3.15 – 4.15pm, at Ffotogallery – Paul Cabuts uses photography to examine the visual history of the Valleys of south Wales in the UK. – Book here
• Saturday 29 April, 6.30 – 9pm, at Cardiff MADE – Michal Iwanowski is a Cardiff based artist and a lecturer in photography at Cardiff Metropolitan University with an interest in the themes of migration, (national) identity, belonging and loss – Book here
• Saturday 13 May, 6.30 – 9pm, at Cardiff MADE – Abbie Trayler-Smith is an acclaimed portrait and documentary photographer, specialising in capturing people’s reactions and responses to contemporary events and social issues – Book here
• Saturday 20 May, 2 – 4.30pm, at Ffotogallery – Paul Reas is a photographer and educator. He recently retired as the Course Leader of the Documentary Photography course at the University of South Wales in Cardiff – Book here
• Saturday 27 May, 2 – 4.30pm, online and at Cardiff MADE – Clémentine Schneidermann is a French photographer.with several long term projects in South Wales and internationally. Faye Chamberlain has worked consistently as a professional photographic artist since 1996. – Book here

Please register to attend the talks through the eventbrite links, available on social media and website pages for Cardiff MADE and ffotogallery.