I recently had the pleasure of taking part in a project called The Edge, with the award winning contemporary photographer Tamara Dean. The Edge was a skills development project involving young people from my area documenting their interactions with the environments unique to their community.

The highlight for me was being able to observe and participate in a shoot with Tamara, which I found to be a fantastic way to learn more about a fine art photographer’s practice. It was brilliant to be able
not only to observe and participate in the shoot but also to be given the opportunity to take my own photos. Using the lighting and techniques that Tamara used and seeing the results that it created was so rewarding and inspiring. I also found it interesting to learn about Tamara’s journey into the art world and her thought processes around how she approaches a shoot and composes her works.

A couple weeks ago was the launch of The Edge exhibition at the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery featuring the outcomes of the project – a series of photographs by the participants and three of Tamara’s own works.

I got to speak at this event and share how instrumental the project has been for my own art making. Seeing my work in the gallery space was extremely exciting and each image displayed depicted different perspective of the environments that we explored, which was interesting.