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These images are some the photographs taken by Year 10 as part of the Olympus photography outreach programme, which will also see their work being exhibited at Art Bermondsey Project Space later this month.

To launch the project, freelance photographer Ed Sykes, whose work has appeared in The Sunday Times and The Independent, for example, visited HAB to discuss his work with Year 10. The girls were then given the brief ‘My School, My Street, My House’ and asked to create their own images to interpret it.

'Surfaces' project for GCSE

To help them, the girls were loaned ten top-quality Olympus cameras and shown how to use them by master trainer Claire Harvey-May. This session was really hands-on and the girls got to test out the many different functions and settings of the cameras.

For the project we have focused on ‘My School’ to really push the girls' creativity in photographing the ordinary and making it extraordinary. The photographs will also be part of their ‘surfaces’ project for GCSE art so a lot of students have focused on looking at the many different surfaces around the school and its grounds.

One girl said: “I’ve enjoyed this project as it has given me the opportunity to widen how I view the world around me. It has given me the chance to look at things in a different way: to see beauty where I wouldn’t usually find something of beauty.”

Private view

Each student had to select three photographs to submit to Art Bermondsey Project Space and the exhibition will feature a maximum of two photographs per student.

Photographs will be printed and displayed in Art Bermondsey Project Space, 183 - 185 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3UW from 21-25 March, with a private view on 22 March. "The quality and serious intent of the photographs produced by the girls at Harris Academy Bermondsey ably demonstrate that we should not be misled by the plethora of camera-phone snappy snaps that pollute the airwaves,' said Mike Von Joel, the gallery's artistic director. "Young people do, in fact, have a very sophisticated take on creative expression through the visual arts."

Parents and staff will be invited to this event and one girl will receive a ‘best photograph’ prize. HAB will also be gifted one of the Olympus camera kits.

Pictured: Top: Burnt, by Rylette Omondi. Middle: Through the glass by Emily Collins Woods. Below, Reflection by Elizabeth Feoshi.

The pictures below show students getting to grips with their cameras. We'll announce the prize winners here later in March.