Talented nurse/photographer praises her former college

A talented former photography student returned to Barking & Dagenham College and remembered fondly her time there.

Hannah Grace Deller is a part-time NHS nurse and published photographer whose intimate photos of the NHS covid pandemic frontline featured across national media.

Her photos inspired a new album by award-winning songwriters, curated by Squeeze’s Chris Difford to raise money for the Royal College of Nursing. She’s even had one song named after her – ‘Hannah Takes Pictures’ and even raps on a song called ‘Working on the Frontline’!

When Hannah visited the college again, more than twenty years after she last did, she got to check out the college’s new professional facilities within the East London Institute of Technology and even bumped into an old teacher.

Hannah says: “I’ve never stopped taking pictures. You should always take pictures no matter what because you love it, just do it. It’s like a muscle that you keep working. Even through difficult, dark times, something amazing can happen like what’s happened to me during the pandemic. And this all started for me at Barking & Dagenham College.”

As well as featuring in lots of national media, Hannah also featured on Grayson Perry’s Art Club TV programme during the pandemic.

Her photos have been exhibited in Grayson Perry’s exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery. Also, one of her photos of nurse Stephanie Perry, waiting for the arrival of a patient at St. Mary’s Hospital Emergency Department, London was selected from many thousands to be displayed at the International Centre of Photography in New York!

Hannah studied for a BTEC in photography at the College, for more information see: https://barkingdagenhamcollege.ac.uk/find/careers/photography