Photography, Visual Effects and Design

Oliver Slater, BA (Hons) Graphic Design, presents his graduate showreel.

This project is a portrayal of London with its continual changes and mutations. I used photomontage to depict the city as a living organism and to illustrate architecture's dynamism and transience. My method of creating, deconstructing, and redesigning each collage echoes the city's impermanence and mutability. A megacity might seem solid, immobile and everlasting, yet various elements emerge while others disappear without our notice every day. Images of cities are affected not just by their physical reality, but also by how and by whom they are perceived.

'Capturing the Mystery of Gunners Park: A Night Photography Project' is a series of images based on my nocturnal exploration of the historic Shoeburyness Old Ranges in Gunners Park, located along the picturesque Thames Estuary. Built in 1856, Shoeburyness Old Ranges functioned as a British Army military training and testing area for artillery and weapons. I photographed the site using light painting techniques inspired by the British artist Edgar Martins, who combines long exposures with multiple bursts of flash. I experimented with various light sources, including torches, LED panels, and coloured gels.

Working in the dark has its challenges, but it can be enjoyable and visually rewarding. The stillness of the photographic night scenes is a metaphor for the complex emotions surrounding our perceptions of places and spaces over time. A sense of nostalgia and uncertainty emerges, transforming the space into the unknown. This project invites viewers to reflect on their relationship with the environment, exploring themes of transience, nostalgia, and the unstoppable passage of time.

“Fading Away” is a project that explores the issue of coastal erosion in the UK, a problem worsened by global warming and the rise of sea levels, which deeply affect communities that live in seaside towns. The work is focused on coastal resorts in the county of Kent, in the South-East of England, that are at risk of disappearance by 2100. The choice of locations in these photographs is based on data drawn from the European Commission and Kent Council reports that identify areas at risk of flooding or erosion. To convey the notion of environmental loss and disintegration, digital C-prints were submerged in seawater taken from the location represented in the photograph and left to dissolve for days. The work can be viewed as a study of impermanence that characterises both photography and the landscape.