Photography by Chloe Collins
Ciara Grant is a current master’s student on the course MSc Biological Photography and Imaging at the University of Nottingham. Her background is in science, holding a BSc Hons degree in Biology, also from the University of Nottingham.
Whilst brand new to the realms of photography, Ciara has acquired a vast number of technical and creative skills in the short space of 4 months on the master’s course. She has acquired photography skills, using lenses including standard, macro, telephoto, wide angle, as well as using film cameras and other devices to achieve desired images. She is competent in studio lighting, using lighting techniques such as field flash, LEDs and studio flash, and sculpts subjects with resources such as reflectors.
In post-production, she is proficient in Adobe Creative Cloud software to design websites and edit photos using Photoshop to focus stack multiple images. She also uses Affinity software like Affinity Lightroom to edit in the field. Her biological knowledge and skillset are applied in software such as ImageJ and Photoshop to carry out image analysis for scientific investigation, using the measuring tools and colour and object selectors to manipulate an image and answer a hypothesis.
With a passion for all things canine, she has taken this and previously produced a short film project on canine evolution, as well as a dissertation in her undergraduate degree surrounding genetic evolution of the Canis genus. The short film was for an EPQ project at A-level and was presented as a documentary-style piece which Ciara researched, scripted, filmed and edited herself and received an A grade for. She later expanded on this topic during her biology degree studies, collating and analysing canine breed genomes from across the world to produce a phylogenetic tree and written research project on historic canine evolution at the molecular level. Having already found her niche for documentary film work, she has now improved on her filmmaking skills, using Adobe Premiere Pro to produce and edit short videos during her master’s degree. She has also used Premier Pro to manipulate her images of specimens from the University’s life sciences museum, creating moving ‘reels’ to advertise it to the public.
A degree combining science and arts has allowed her to express her own ideas and find personal creative style, away from the lab bench, as well as successfully fulfilling briefs for other people and companies. She intends to carry this on, taking her scientific understanding, identification and accuracy skills and apply them with photography and design for creative purposes, with a view to educating others.
When she isn't studying or taking photographs, Ciara works part-time at her local English Heritage site café serving customers as a barista and catering assistant. This has developed her outgoing nature and communication skills. She is a keen reader, baker and environmentally conscious thrift shopper. San Francisco born but living in Derbyshire, England by the Peak District, she enjoys walks with friends and her dog there and has plans for photography projects in the Peaks.