Riverdale Grange Summer Fair | TRAC

What a chilly yet inspiring day on Saturday 7^th September at Riverdale Grange in Sheffield! We were invited to set up a stall by our good friends at Riverdale Grange to help raise money for the clinic by promoting and selling products and prints that have been created by our students in-house. This will be our third year that we have attended the Summer Fayre at Riverdale and each year we are amazed by their dedication and care. There were a  number of people who attended the fayre and highly praised the work we were selling as they bought a range of our hand printed cards, tags, cushions and prints. Mia Furniss, an A2 graphics student from last year, had her designs make an appearance on the other stalls that were set up by the staff at Riverdale, as they had collaborated together in a working brief last year and hand-printed their own t-shirts using Mia’s design. They looked fantastic!! And also received a lot of interest as people were ordering sizes and specific colours to be made in. Hopefully we will see them again soon for further workshops and collaborations!

Where Are They Now? | Steven Jones

Guest blog post time! Here is a post by ex student Steven Jones who studied Photography, Media and Film here from 2016-2018. and has now gone onto work as a photographer, both freelance and for the creative agency awesome.™. Steven impressed Dan Rose from awesome so much at the TRC final exhibition last year he left him a business card to get in touch, and the rest is history! Take it away Steven! 

It seems like decades ago since I last walked into TRC as a student, to hideaway in the darkroom pouring coca cola onto my prints to get a cool effect. In fact, it’s only been about a year now but I suppose you can do a lot in that time.

After leaving TRC in July 2018 I began working as a freelancer, using my photography skills to try and get a grasp on the real world industry. If not for Dan Rose (aka Drose/Lil Pump’s biggest fan) I’d not have had a clue where to start as at this point I hadn’t even built up the courage to open Adobe lightroom and learn how to edit RAW photos. Dan took me under his wing at his company (awesome.™) and I began shadowing him on a bunch of photoshoots, the first of which was at Barnsley College capturing images for the new prospectus.

I learned rather quickly that as a photographer in the real world you have to be pretty adaptive and ready for anything, there really is no amount of planning which will prepare you for when you walk through the door on the day of shooting.

After shadowing Dan for a few weeks I began to take over some photography responsibilities within the company, mainly taking care of Dan’s estate agent client, and conducting photoshoots of properties around the South Yorkshire area. At first I’ll admit, taking responsibility and going it alone was somewhat daunting after only a few weeks ago being in a classroom still asking teachers if “this looks good”, but soon enough with time my experience and confidence grew significantly helping me get better at the job in hand.

At first, most new photography jobs I had to do were intimidating as there’s a level of expectation in which the client expects not only a product to be delivered but a high quality one, and with photography at events and occasions such as weddings you’ve essentially got to nail it the first time!

I’d say I was prepared for most eventualities as I’d been using my camera in manual for years so I should be good to go right? Well truthfully, it was being ‘creative’ when put on the spot which got me the most. Some may argue that you can’t really teach creativity however I think that my time at TRC did teach me to take my time and explore ideas in various ways instead of opting for the first and easiest option.

Hours in the darkroom jamming to Enter Shikari and printing photos onto expensive paper had somewhat prepared me for the moment I needed to capture a wedding ceremony. I realised I could take my time and focus on getting those few great prints or in this case great images which were smashing quality, rather than panic and fill my SD card with half decent “pics” which more than likely would be disappointing to look back on rather than exciting and special – like wedding shots should be!

Fast forwarding to now, I’m working on developing skills which work hand in hand with my photography like videography, graphic design and branding. This is great for me as I also studied Film and Media at TRC where I learned about film production and how a director works to create a video masterpiece, and I’ve now had chance to have a crack myself and put my videography to the test. We’re working on a new website here at awesome.™ and have created a video to show off who we are and what goes on behind the scenes. Not only this, but in the past month we started filming wedding videos, which is all the fun of regular wedding photography but with added complications as I’m sure you can imagine!

All in all it’s been a pretty mad year since leaving TRC, there’s plenty I’ve missed out but if you’ve made it this far into this post I’m sure you’re already getting bored so ill wrap it up by saying cheers to TRC and Dan from awesome.™!

Oh I missed out that I had chance to go inside a Halifax bomber and take photos, was pretty mad to be fair…

Where Are They Now? | Evie Atton

See below a guest post by ex Fine Art and Photography student Evie Atton, who studied here 2014 - 2016 and has recently graduated with a first class honours in Fine Art at the University of Lincoln! Well done Evie! 

Within my time at Thomas Rotherham College I studied Fine Art, Photography and Geography before transitioning straight into university life. I chose the University of Lincoln due to its contemporary and modern outlook within the arts, from exhibition curation to catalogue design, the course provides understanding to professionalise your practice.

Art and photography at TRC helped me find my technique and style as I felt there was no boundaries, I was just pushed to create ANYTHING. I went from a traditional painting/drawing mindset to exploring other possibilities within installation and sculpture. With my already-made portfolios evidencing tons of different types of techniques, materials and ideas I was ready for my university interviews.

I have just graduated with a First-Class Honours after completing 3 years of Fine Art, within these years I have experienced catalogue design, solo and group exhibition curation, arts management, funding proposals and much more alongside building and creating my artworks.

My ideal goal is to become an art therapist/teacher for children with disabilities, so the next step is to apply for a PGCE (teaching course). Currently beside my art commissions, I am involving myself within art residencies, which are usually community run exhibitions to gain further experience before hopefully setting up my own business.

My website ; https://evehfrancesca.wixsite.com/evieatton

Images are from my most recent exhibition ‘PIE N EARS’. The piece ‘Sensorium’

is an immersive space that influences a participant to become more aware of their senses; focusing on individuality, first person experience and perception.

Cloud Land | SFCA Art Exhibition 2019

Before summer, we had three of our first year students exhibit their work in the SFCA (sixth form college association) Cloud Land Exhibition at Alexandra Palace in London! Amelia Everest, Caitlin Earnshaw and Christopher Scattergood all submitted a piece of work surrounding the theme of ‘Aerial Pioneers’, and produced these 3 fantastic pieces which were then displayed at the exhibition. Unfortunately we couldn’t make it down to the exhibition itself as we were snowed under with our own exhibition up here in Rotherham! But from what we’ve seen it looked like a fantastic evening and a great display of work. Huge well done and thank you to Amelia, Cailtin and Chris for getting involved in this, and well done to everyone else who had their work exhibited at this year’s SFCA Art Exhibition.

Caitlin Earnshaw

'Female Flight'

Christopher Scattergood

'Skyward Discovery'

Amelia Everest

'Aerial Innovation'