Tony Hayes - Photographer & Teaching Assistant

The A2AA scheme or Artist Access To Art Colleges is a programme that offers graduating art and design students the opportunity to do they work they love completely funded by the scheme. All of this allows graduates to let their imagination free without the restrictions of a budget.

The person I took interest from out of the A2AA artists was man named Tony Hayes. Tony is a part-time classroom teaching assistant while also doing photography on the side. To begin with he spoke about how after finishing university he went right into commercial photography but he found it to be a tall order to make a living through this. Because of this he decided to look into becoming a teaching assistant. He said that the skills he developed through his years at university helped put him over the edge over the other applicants and included things like his photoshop skills and all-around computer skills. Even after getting his job he says he kept in touch with photographers he knew and kept it going on as a hobby. I feel I can heavily relate to this as I myself am wanting to go into teaching and maybe do some product design work on the side as it is something I enjoy doing.

From hearing tony talk it made me think about the skills I need to develop over my final year and those that I can strengthen to ensure I get the best possible change at getting a job after I finish my university experience. For this reason I want to make sure my remaining time at the university is put to best use by doing things that can further my skills. This includes things like making sure my Major project involves a wide range of skills from research testing and physical making to showcase all my skills. This also includes looking for voluntary or paid work within or with high school students as these would be the people that I would be working with in the future.

Overall I found the talk with Tony very helpful in my task to making sure my portfolio contains a wide range of skill to take into my PGCE course and eventually my job as all the skills will have some form of transferability in the classroom.