Hi, I’m Jo Booth and in May 2024 I saw the opportunity to apply for a photography commission, shared by my course tutor, with S&DR200: a nine-month festival taking place across County Durham and Tees Valley in 2025, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the first journey on the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The opportunity was ring-fenced to students in the second and third year of BA(Hons) Photography at Teesside University and I was immediately interested. It offered the opportunity to work on a professional client-based commission, mentored by staff at Uni and attracting ‘artist’ rates for payment. The brief centred on making photographic portraits of key staff and partners involved in planning the festival at various locations along the 26-mile stretch of the original railway. With a key interest in industrial history and environmental portraiture, I knew I just had to apply to draft a response to the selection panel’s simple questions and pull together a relevant online portfolio to demonstrate my skills. After sharing this with my tutor for feedback, before refining my final version, I pressed the button and submitted it.

I was fortunate to have developed relevant experience during the first two years of my course which strongly backed up my application. In 2023, I worked on a commission for ‘Crossing the Tees Literary Festival’ as a Photographer in Residence, taking photos of people in many libraries across the Teesside region. Working with a writer and a local publisher the work was published in a book called ‘Everyone Welcome’. In addition, my working life before being a mature student at Teesside had given me a wealth of transferable skills and experiences in working with people, planning, and dealing with partners and customers. I was over the moon to receive an email in June saying I had been successful and accepted immediately!

Ian Fenton and Pippa Oldfield, academic staff at Uni, introduced me to my contact for the festival, Jill, and together we began planning subjects, locations and dates during July and August: Directors of museums, Board Members, Councillors, and the core festival team in various sites around Stockton and Darlington. I gathered a range of equipment to support the technical requirements of the brief and did lots of research and preparation, but I was still really nervous for the first shoot which took place at Preston Park Museum. Jill accompanied me to the majority of the shoots and acted as my assistant and ‘roadie’ which was fantastic – we soon developed a great working relationship and were able to manage the challenges of getting people together in the right location at the right time (thankfully, mostly with the right weather too!).

In total I did five shoots and took hundreds of images, sharing a selection with Jill after each shoot to make sure the client was happy with my work. I delivered 51 final images to meet the deadline and received excellent feedback:

“We think they are terrific! Jo was a consummate professional on all the shoots and very good at making her subjects feel at ease.”

My photographs will be used in marketing for the festival, on the website and social media. I have been invited to the festival launch event on 19th September (my birthday!) and am speaking with Jude Thomas (Head of Department, School of Arts and Creative Industries) about putting together a presentation to share with other students during Creative Week in October 2024 and exhibiting my work.

I’m so glad I applied! Being a student on the BA (Hons) Photography course has opened up my opportunities and vastly developed my skills. The tutors and technical staff are amazing and there is access to a wide range of industry-standard equipment. I’m really excited about the photos appearing in the media. and it’s a wonderful opportunity to develop my reputation, raise my profile and move into a forthcoming career in photography. I’ve really enjoyed working on the whole commission, meeting lots of people and developing my portraiture skills. It’s been fabulous!

You can find out more about the project here: sdr200.co.uk
You can view my online portfolio here: joboothportraits.myportfolio.com

Find out more about our BA (Hons) Photography course here.