When A-level student Oscar Blair popped into the Indie‘s office to offer help with our Ukrainian refugee aid appeal, he left with a photographic assignment.
The 18-year-old is doing photography, geography and history at Herts and Essex High School and hopes to do documentary photography at university in London or South Wales.
Oscar, who did his GCSEs at Birchwood, lives in Carrigans, off Chantry Road, with his father, who is a teacher, and his mother, who works in pharma.
He said: “I’ve been shooting for about six years now, starting with my dad’s old camera and taking photos of sunsets, flowers etc, but now I would call myself a music, portrait and documentary photographer.
“My one and only documentary series has been on young people’s relationship with religion, which ended up being featured in a publication The Photographers’ Gallery did in January.”
He said that he was “always up for a challenge and something new, so if the opportunity ever arises I’d love to shoot for the Independent“. So we invited him to cover the Bishop’s Stortford vigil for the people of Ukraine which was held in Market Square on Sunday (March 13), organised by East Herts district councillor Norma Symonds, a former mayor of the town.
Oscar said: “The vigil was touching. I don’t think I’ve seen Stortford unified in grief like that before. The [town] band were excellent, and it was a great touch hearing the [Ukrainian] national anthem.”
For more of Oscar’s work see his portfolio at oscarblair.xyz.
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