A King’s Ely student has had her photography recognised with two prestigious awards

King’s Ely Year 11 student Ella Martin had her photography recognised in two prestigious awards. She was Highly Commended in the Khadija Saye Photography Award category at the Boarding Schools’ Association Supporting Excellence Awards. She also won a prize for portraiture in Norwich University of the Arts’ Beyond the Frame competition.

Ella’s achievement was in the ‘Khadija Saye Photography Award’ category, which recognises the ‘best photography portfolios by UK boarding school students’. The award is named in honour of the former Rugby School boarding pupil and international photographer, who tragically died in the Grenfell Tower fire. All three of Ella’s images were created for a sustained project, entitled ‘Portraiture’, as part of her GCSE coursework.

This success came just weeks after Ella discovered that she had won a prize in the 2023 ‘Beyond the Frame’ Photography Competition, which is organised by Norwich University of the Arts (NUA). Now in its sixth year, the annual competition is open to photography students aged 11-19 from across the globe.

This year, there were 650 entries from 176 schools in 26 different countries. These entries were whittled down to 50 shortlisted candidates, of which seven were King’s Ely students. Ella won the ‘People’ category of the competition, with her winning image chosen by photographer, filmmaker and educator, Cat Gundry-Beck.

King’s Ely kingsely.org

Further reading: Malvern College pupil’s Wisden accolade