The digital age has placed a myriad of tools and programmes at photographers’ fingertips, making it easier than ever for the uninitiated to slap a couple of filters onto their snapshot and call it art.

But digital tools cannot replace technical precision. It takes study and practice to take those pictures that truly move, evoke and inspire.

Built on this premise, the ongoing collaboration between Banif Bank and the Mcast Institute of Art and Design continues to reap promising results while fostering the next generation of aspiring artists.

Eight first year students following the National Higher Diploma in Photography were invited to take part in a Life Case, with the bank taking on the role of a client and commissioning them to carry out jobs as part of a simulated real work situation with an in-dustry-specific brief outlining requirements and brand guidelines.

The work will be used in a var-iety of the organisation’s marketing collateral, serving to both further exposure and give students on-the-job experience.

The work will be used in a variety of marketing collateral

The focus of the project was to capture four of the localities in which the bank operates – Gżira, Mosta, Fgura and Paola.

All of them are bustling hubs of activity with uniquely modern urban tapestries of crowded store-fronts, concrete behemoths and jam-packed tarmac, given life by the comings and goings of hundreds of residents, workers and visitors.

And yet, even in today’s consumer-centric homogeneity, rare flashes of underlying beauty occasionally catch the perceptive eye of the photographer.

Works by Matthew Kassar.Works by Matthew Kassar.

Experimenting with the techniques learnt in the classroom and onsite, the final photo portfolios were a wonderful assortment of form, composition, exposure and light.

Through the inspired (some may say untainted) lenses of these eager young students the localities’ character was truly uncovered. Be it a macro or wide-angle, every photo invites the viewer to take a closer look at the intricacies which most take for granted.

A teachers’ collective

In a separate initiative, the bank also recently organised a collective exhibition featuring the works of art teachers in Church schools. Featuring a variety of form, media and technique, the exhibition’s curation was a collective effort.

Photo: Dillion DebonoPhoto: Dillion Debono

Under the direction of the head of department for art and graphical communication Anthony Patrick Vella, all 22 contributing artists were in-volved in developing a flow of subjects, monochromes, colours and tones across Palazzo De La Salle’s rooms.

“Whenever I meet an art teacher, I perceive an over-whelming creative energy,” said Patrick Vella.

“Each teacher has a double role and vocation – that of delivering artistic knowledge to form a better society and that of practising and expressing his or her artistic expression to the full. It is a prerogative for art teachers to practise what they preach.”

The media used was varied, ranging from traditional acrylics, oil and charcoal on canvas to unconventional pieces incorporating sawdust, glass and gesso.

The collection comprised over 70 works by the following artists: Lisa Ambrogio, Christopher Azzopardi, Maria Baldacchino, Elizabeth Borg, Sean Briffa, Clint Calleja, Tiziana Calleja, Hannah Cassar, Louise Camilleri, Jason Joe Farrugia, Rosalie Formosa, Catherine Anne Galea, Andrew Giordmaina, Alison Grima, Matthew Kassar, Sara Pace, Kevin Sciberras, Lida Sharafatmand, Alison Shaw, Hilary Spiteri, Marline Vella Camilleri and Anthony Patrick Vella.

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