This year Falmouth’s BA Photography graduates ditched doing a final show in London in favour of a two-day portfolio review, staffed by picture editors, curators and gallerists. I thought it was a great idea, giving both students and reviewers a chance to look at the work thoroughly and talk through the ideas behind it, something not always possible at busy degree shows. Two students I spoke to, Samuel Balmer and Luke Banks, said the review had also given them ideas for the future, both in how to develop their work and how to set about making a career in it, which I found very positive too – a final show is, afterall, really just the start.

As with any year group there was a mixed bag of work, but Balmer and Banks both impressed with their focussed, intelligent projects. Both had opted for an environmental theme, Balmer shooting waste disposal in and around Falmouth and Banks professional gardening and the Millennium Seed Bank project. Both had the makings of good editorial stories, as did Joseph Holden’s Standard Issue project. Holden had managed to get access to an army training facility, and had taken very competent images of the young recruits and their exercises. He’s been invited to travel to Afghanistan with the 3rd Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, it will be interesting to see what he comes back with.

Emily Bunt’s project on the Sisters of the Carmelite Monastery in Sclerder, Looe, meanwhile, showed maturity beyond her years, and I particularly liked her set of portraits. The nuns live without mirrors and free from the usual standards of female beauty, which made these sensitive images all the more interesting to look at. I didn’t actually get to speak with Helen Cunnane, but her portraits of young women also impressed. As much about the poses these women adopt as the portraits themselves, the project is called The Performance of the Woman.

A few of the students had put together very attractive books, closely thinking through the design and narrative - it’s interesting to see the vogue for high quality self-published book reaching out as far as Falmouth. Robert Chilton’s Love Vigilantes told an obliquely touching story and included some cracking images, for example, as did Craig Tregonning. But for me the biggest surprise, and a great pleasure, was a mini scene in found imagery. Ruth Waters’ playful, energetic magazine spoof mixed up images from porn with stern advice from Cosmopolitan (and many more), making for a funny and very serious comment on the position of women in our culture.

Image © Katie Webb, from her final year project.

Katie Webb’s This is what I heard when I listened collaged images relating to single news bulletins, meanwhile, combining footballers with ash clouds and landslides with the UK election. Hinting at the sheer repetitiveness of most news items, it was a dark but striking comment on our ability to affect real change. Jackson Wise’s project, Seduction of Texture, played with images in a wide variety of ways, using everything from archive shots of séances to disembodied Facebook pictures. It was great to see these students engaging with politics and thinking about photography’s impact on society in such style. Look out for more on these three soon, alongside an interview with arch-political montager, Peter Kennard.