The Great British Photography Challenge

If you didn’t catch BBC4’s prime-time photography series, you can still watch it on streaming. Niall Hampton catches up with the six contestants who battled it out for top spot

- Niall Hampton

Hello photographers…” Rankin’s regular greeting on The Great British Photography Challenge may well endure as a catchphrase in the photographic community long after the BBC series concluded on 14 June.

As the fourth and final episode had still to air as we went to press, we can’t discuss the final outcome of the show, but wasn’t it good to see a programme celebrating all that’s wonderful about photography on terrestrial TV? (For anyone who didn’t manage to tune in to BBC4, you can catch the series on BBC iPlayer until June 2022.)

The Great British Photography Challenge saw six amateur photographers selected to showcase their skills on prime-time television; the images they produced in response to the weekly assignments and briefs contributed to a set of 15 that were exhibited in a gallery to close the series.

Setting the challenges, mentoring and guiding the six-shooters was the portrait photographer Rankin and members of his creative team; other experts to guide the participants included wildlife and nature photographer Chris Packham, portrait photographer Maryam Wahid, landscape photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper and photographer Lamarr Golding.

While the series was being aired, Digital Camera caught up with the six participants to discover what it was like to take part in the show and the impact it had – and will continue to have – on their photography.

Rankin

Photographer, filmmaker and publisher and the GBPC taskmaster

Initially best-known for his fashion photography and innovative magazines, Rankin has branched out into film-making and television. www.rankinphoto.co.uk

Ali Lewis