Contemporary photomedia students from CQU Mackay recently attended class on location at Artspace Mackay, where several photographic exhibits are featured this month.

The students viewed a selection of photographs by celebrated Sydney photographer William Yang, a selection of life-sized portraits of the ‘boat people’ residing on the Pioneer River by local photographer Dean Whitling, and historical images from the Joskeleigh South Sea Islander Museum.

CQU lecturer Dr Ashley Holmes said, “The current exhibition at Artspace provides an excellent opportunity for the students to experience first-hand a large range of quality images covering some of the different styles, themes and genres that they study in the course at CQU".

CQU lecturer and course coordinator, Kate Ames, is based at CQU Rockhampton. Acording to Kate, “The contemporary photomedia course was designed to serve cross-disciplinary needs of students studying journalism, contemporary communication, public relations and multimedia programs; to give them the skills and visual understanding of traditional and contemporary digital and film photography".

The contemporary photomedia course at CQU won a Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, in recognition of the teamwork that went into preparing the course back in 2004. The course is one of the few (possibly the only) university level photo courses that is available to study in distance mode.

Photos above and left: CQU International student Sandra Barkhuizen took these photographs of her classmates during their class visit to Artspace Mackay last week.