An Ely student's creativity and photography skills have been celebrated in two awards ceremonies.

Ella Martin, who is in Year 11 at King’s Ely Senior, was highly commended in this year’s Boarding Schools’ Association (BSA) Supporting Excellence Awards.

Ella’s achievement was in the 'Khadija Saye Photography Award' category, which recognises the 'best photography portfolios by UK boarding school students’.

The award is named in honour of the former Rugby School boarding pupil and respected international photographer, who died in the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.

When describing Ella's portfolio, judges said: “A powerful portfolio of portraits demonstrating a strong range of technical skills.”

Ely Standard: Ella Martin’s images were created for a sustained project, entitled ‘Portraiture’Ella Martin’s images were created for a sustained project, entitled ‘Portraiture’ (Image: King's Ely)

All three of Ella’s images were created for a sustained project, titled ‘portraiture’, as part of her GCSE coursework.

Ella said: “I wanted to experiment with a wide range of studio lighting and mixed media to enhance my models.”

It comes just weeks after Ella discovered she had won a prize in the 2023 'Beyond the Frame' Photography Competition. This year, there were 650 entries from 176 schools located in 26 different countries.

These entries were whittled down to 50 shortlisted candidates, with seven being King’s Ely students: Ella, Elliott Hilsden, Sam Clarke, Willis Xu, Euan Henry, Lia Kunis, and Thomas Bateman.

Ely Standard: Ella Martin’s images were created for a sustained project, entitled ‘Portraiture’Ella Martin’s images were created for a sustained project, entitled ‘Portraiture’ (Image: KING'S ELY)

Ella won the ‘people’ category of the competition. Her image was chosen by photographer, filmmaker and educator Cat Gundry-Beck who commended Ella’s "beautiful work”.

In a statement posted on the NUA website, Cat called the standard of work "incredible diverse", adding that "the sense of play and experimentation was unbelievable, with people finding influences from so many different places”.

Mr Longo, who has been Head of Photography at King’s Ely for eight years, said: “I am extremely proud of Ella and all our students who were shortlisted in these competitions."