LAST year, when Southern Highlands Christian School student Josh Bentley spent the year on his HSC major work for art, he had no idea it would go any further than that.
To his surprise, his photography was chosen to be displayed in art galleries in the ARTEXPRESS exhibition.
"I was ecstatic when I found out my work had been chosen to be displayed," Josh said. "It reassured me that my work was good and gave me direction."
Typically, more than 8000 students submit a body of work as part of the HSC examination in Visual Arts and about 600 of these are nominated for ARTEXPRESS.
About 200 are selected for exhibition.
"When you start in Year 11, having your work shown in ARTEXPRESS is a goal; but when I got to Year 12 and saw what was in the exhibition I started to doubt myself because the work just blew me away," he said.
Josh's major work consisted of 12 photographs and he enjoyed working on it. He said Year 12 was mentally and physically challenging and his work was in response to what was happening in his life at the time.
This year Josh will be starting a degree at the Sydney College of Arts, a Faculty of the University of Sydney, majoring in photography.
He is moving with best friend Julien Bowman, who also is doing an arts course.
"It will be good to live in a creative space where we will be able to feed off each other," he said.
"I'm looking forward to moving to Sydney; I'm ready for something different.
"I'd like to go to Europe and Asia and work overseas. The dream is to live off selling my photography, but there isn't a huge market here.
"There is also the option of commercial photography or graphic design; there are a lot of options out there."
Josh started off making skate videos of his friends and then got into photography when his art teacher, Ms Vandremt, said he'd be good at it.
"I saved up for an SLR camera and I've never looked back," Josh said.
"I like to photograph friends doing relatively mundane things and capture it in different lights."
Josh said he liked photography because it was challenging and he liked to be challenged.
Having moved to Bowral when he was 11 years old from England with his mother, he is thankful for the opportunities he's had here.
"I want to say a big thank you to Southern Highlands Christian School and my art teacher, she was a mentor for me; having a teacher that has confidence in you like that really helps," he said
Josh draws inspiration from his brother in England, who doesn't have the opportunities that he [Josh] has due to financial difficulty.
One thing Josh likes about photography is taking photos of people and seeing their reactions and making them happy.
"It is good for venting frustration, but also happiness. I'd rather create something than punch a wall," he said.
A true photographer, Josh always tries to have his camera on him and hates it when he has forgotten it and misses an opportunity.
"It's the worst thing in the world when you see the perfect shot and you don't have your camera with you," he said.
The Southern Highlands was not short of talented HSC students last year. Chevalier College students Katie Tyler and Meg Driver also had their work selected for the ARTEXPRESS exhibition.
Josh's work will be shown at the ARTEXPRESS exhibitions in the Hazlehurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre from February 11 to March 18 and Wollongong City Gallery from June 15 to August 19.
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