Out of 182 students chosen for the prestigious 2024 National Art School intensive HSC Studio Practice program, only eight have been selected for the Black and White Photography course.
Inverell’s James Payton, 17, is one of those young artists.
“It being an opportunity to further my skill, that’s what I’m interested in,” the year 11 Macintyre High School student said.
“It’s only open to a handful.”
The program is offered in the second week of the July and October school holidays. James will travel to Sydney to be mentored in techniques and concepts of analogue photography, immersed in the darkroom, and roaming the streets with a 35mm camera and rolls of film.
He has also received rare support to access the opportunity.
“James has also been awarded one of our Regional Boarding Scholarships, allowing him to complete the HSC program and receive accommodation for the length of the program at no cost,” National Art School education coordinator Cecilia Jackson said.
“Only 20 students have been awarded this scholarship in 2024.”
James made a mark at the national school in early 2024 when he joined the Dobell Drawing School program. Macintyre art teacher Sharon Gilmour supported James in his applications. She said he stands out with his creativity and passion to learn.
“He’s very hardworking, dedicated, willing to experiment, try new things, all those things in art that you have to do,” Sharon said.
“He will push the boundaries. Most (students) won’t. So, in that sense, he challenges what’s been done before in photography. He’s a very accomplished photographer, so he does a lot of freelance photography himself.”
James said his interest began in year four, with a desire to become a YouTuber.
“I got a cheap action camera. And I was really into motorbikes then, so I would take the motorbike clips out of it, and just try to edit them in together with Premiere Pro, which was what the school had, which is also industry standard for filmmaking. So I learnt Premiere Pro pretty well,” James said.
A family purchase of a DSLR camera further ignited his interest, and he began experimenting with videography and the limits of that camera.
“And that slowly morphed from video into photo,” he said.
He was interested in both taking photos, and the technical side, spending hours editing and experimenting with Photoshop, and spending time with commercial photography. It left him reaching for more.
“I was doing that for a while, but it was retuning pretty poor results, and I was just wanted to push it as much as I can,” James said.
He wanted a step up from his own camera, and borrowed his Pop’s Sony, adding a new dimension to the quality of the images, and his own experience.
“And just pushing it even more, seeing what I could do, so stars, light painting, doing as much long-exposure photography as I could, and just working out what I could do editing-wise, watching YouTube. Fast-shutter speed, meshed in with slow-shutter speed to try to see what I could do with Photoshop.”
It was all about experimenting and learning, investing hours in editing images at the computer.
“I would just try more things all the time, to a higher extent, over and over.” James said. “I was just pushing it as much as I could to find, what’s the hardest, most obscure thing I could do, and try to make that a thing?”
The pathway to the darkroom was another avenue to push boundaries and experiment. He said photography captures interest in the technology and structure.
“I more like the scientific nature of trial and error: let’s push the medium itself, rather than the conceptual part,” he said.
“I kind of take a science-based approach to it. A lot of art is pretty up in the air, which I’m not very up in the air. I like to do things a bit more structured, to an order, and that’s why I think I gravitated toward photography.”
The week in Sydney will be a chance for James to immerse himself in new challenges. Sharon said James is one of the first to put up his hands to help out with tech and creative support.
“He’s been so handy. He’s been helping kids with their 3-D printing and programming at the moment,” she said.
“I have a hope he has really wonderful inspiration and he gets back into his passion of continuing doing photography for his HSC.”
Top image: Inverell Macintyre High student James Payton, 17, in the school darkroom. (Photo: Michèle Jedlicka)
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