A Huddersfield student has earned praise in a global awards scheme.
Talented young photographer Alex Beldea is using his camera to document people facing changes and challenges in their lives, in the UK and in his own town of Petroșani, in Romania.
And the University of Huddersfield student has now won recognition in a prestigious international competition.
Alex, 22, is in the final year of his photography degree course at the University’s Queensgate campus. He already has experience of commercial photography, gained during a 12-month placement with an agency based in Leeds, and he undertakes freelance work. But he is also developing a portfolio of pictures that are social documents as well as artistic images.
He is from the town of Petroșani, in Romania’s Jiu Valley. It has long been a coal mining area, but three of its pits are facing closure, meaning an uncertain future for the workers.
Over the course of several months Alex paid return visits to Romania and photographed the miners and their surroundings, and managed to build up a portfolio of more than 100 pictures documenting the final stages of mining in Paroșeni, Petrila and Uricani.
He selected six of the images and entered them for the 2014 International Photography Awards, which attract a large global entry. They are run in tandem with the Lucie Foundation, which has a mission to honour top photographers, discover emerging talent and promote the appreciation of photography worldwide.
Alex’s selection earned him an honourable mention in the Non-Professional, Photo Essay and Feature Story category.
Alex said: “One of my aims was to raise levels of sympathy and understanding for the Romanian miners.
“I have now embarked on a new documentary project, photographing Syrians refugees who have come to the UK, fleeing the conflict in their homeland. This will be the final-year project for my BA degree”.
Alex said he had been enthusiastic photographer since boyhood and Alex settled on the UK as the best country in which to develop his skills and knowledge at degree level.
