Swansea: Photographer with two years' experience snaps up top award

A press photographer in Wales who took up the profession two years ago says she is "overwhelmed" after winning a prestigious award.

Joann Randles, 34, from Swansea took first prize in the portrait category of the British Press Photographers' Association's (BPPA) photographer of the year competition.

The former film and television producer saw all her work dry up during the first Covid lockdown and started to experiment taking pictures.

"It became increasingly difficult to express myself creatively," she remembered. "I started taking pictures, mainly of Gower [wild] ponies."

After honing her skills on horses, Joann said her interest turned to capturing people.

Her first break came after a photoshoot with the Rother Bobbers, a group of women who swim in Langland Bay.

One of her snaps of the women won a Daily Express photo award in 2021.

"It ended being exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was just surreal," she said.

"I was able to transpose my skills from TV and put them into photography, because really it is all about telling stories," she said. "It's just with photography the story in a single frame."

Joann got her press card in 2021 and started working as a freelancer for a photo agency.

Like most journalists, she said, her "brain is working 99% of the time coming up with ideas".

It also means dropping everything when a storm rolls through Wales or a big story breaks.

But her passion is portraiture.

"It's really important to get the backstory... the personalities and anything you can add to the photo about who they are as a person," she said.

The portfolio of six portraits that won top honours at this year's BPPA competition includes a snap of Darren 'Graceland' Jones, a well-known Elvis tribute artist from Pontypool.

"I wanted to photograph him in his home environment away from spotlight," she said. "He's still in the spotlight but in his living room."

On winning a top award after just two years in the business Joann said: "It's been overwhelming.

"I'm really proud, but I never expected to receive the recognition I've had so rapidly."

"Working alone you are not seeing what you are doing," she said, explaining that her confidence has grown with her peers appreciating her work.

Her goal is to do more UK-wide and international work in the next two years.

For aspiring photographers, her advice is to "just pick up a camera" but she warns there is a "phenomenal" amount of hard work to do.

"Don't expect them to come to you, you have to get yourself out there."

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