Photo News – Norwich University of the Creative Arts student Simon Bell recognised in annual D&AD awards

Photos above and below: © Simon Bell

In June I was invited to give a talk to photo degree students, across all years, at Norwich University for the Creative Arts (NUCA), and in the afternoon, I looked at third-year students’ portfolios.

Some of the students took the initiative to speak to me afterwards and contact me by email with feedback and some questions. One of the photographic briefs given to the students was to enter the D&AD student awards with a task set by celebrity and portrait photographer Rankin, who took the black-and-white portrait of me that I use for social media purposes.

Congratulations to NUCA student Simon Bell who scooped the Best of Year Award. “This is something like a Special Commendation,” Bell says, “and is awarded to work that has taken a particular aspect of the criteria and developed it to a point of excellence making it worthy of a special mention.”

This year’s brief was “to find a way of making a 2D image appear more 3D” and to create an image that “doesn’t appear flat – which has depth, texture, life – it jumps out of the page at you”. The international competition is open to students and was judged this year by Rankin and Nadav Kander. D&AD‘s remit is “to inform, educate and inspire those who work in and around the creative industries”.

Of his working practice Bell writes: “Having had a mostly scientific and mathematical educational background, prior to university, I find my work and photographic interests centre around the themes of geometry, order and shape. These themes I translate into visual elements of pattern, line and space to create geometric and abstract images.

“Whilst maintaining these ideals within all of my work, I exploit the subject matter of my surroundings in an attempt to attribute new meaning, to otherwise dull situations.”