It’s graduation time on campus, here are some of my favourite Imperial graduation images…
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
Graduate at Imperial and you are centre stage here at the Royal Albert Hall, almost worth the hard work isn’t it? Spare a thought though for the graduation handshake photographer (can be seen on the balcony to the right) who has to capture every single handshake on the stage, there’s 4,696 of these today.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
A rather bold graduate proposed to his partner via poster, on stage at his Graduation at the Royal Albert Hall. I was at the top of the hall when he did it, but the moment can be seen on the video screen here in this image if you zoom in. At the end of the ceremony, I flew to his seat to try and capture the moment when he met his partner for the first time since the proposal outside the hall. Thankfully she said yes!
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
The Royal Albert Hall looks so good between ceremonies surrounded by our graduands.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
While you’re up on such a grand stage, why not meet the President, Professor Hugh Brady.
Image © Dave Guttridge, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
A President’s handshake.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
It really is a day of heartwarming scenes of pride.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
Inside the view from the organ box behind the stage is spectacular once the ceremony is under way. A graduand can be seen shaking hands with Provost, Professor Ian Walmsley to the right of the stage in the foreground.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
We have a lot of fun hunting down ‘Gradu-dogs’ between ceremonies!
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
The light bouncing off the front of Sherfield can make for some interesting shadows.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
A graduand approaching the stage for the first time, this leg of the Imperial journey is nearly complete.
Image © Dave Guttridge, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
Getting into character, gowning in the Great Hall
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
On a white background this image takes on a whole new life. The white separator between the new floor, and the old floor on Dalby court means the couple look like they are stepping out of the frame. The lines and positioning also give the frame a nice tension. Historically we’ve had a lot of rainy graduations, but I quite like the brollies!
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
One of the most cheerful parts of the ceremony where the graduates give thanks to those who helped them on their journey, lots of cheering and waving at family members around the hall…
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
Some (very) rare sunshine at a Graduation on the Queens lawn illuminating scenes of jubilation and relief.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
I don’t recall exactly why we had a row of motorbike police outside the main entrance one year, but they were good sports and quite happy for this chirpy Business School graduate to hop aboard.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
Friends graduating together.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
On the Queen’s Lawn. Of course, we changed all the signage in the background a couple of months later making our once in a decade sunny graduation lawn photographs redundant by the Autumn!
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
There’s a lot of posing for photograph’s going on outside the Hall before the ceremony, I’m fond of this image because of the old and new styles of photography in action, the graduate looking at the image on a phone camera in the foreground and the traditional camera in action in the background.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
Mostly… It rains for at least some if not all of graduation day, the record is amazing.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
Traditional grad grid shot.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
All done.
Image © Dave Guttridge, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
Love this candid shot of Mary Morrell, Professor of Sleep and Respiratory Physiology and Senior Teaching Fellow Dr Leanna Felkin outside the hall.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
The Royal Albert Hall really is a sublime venue and extremely fun with a fisheye lens, here a spectator watches on from one of the boxes to the left of the image.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
The sun did come out last year, in a dozen years of shooting our graduations, this is the ONLY one I can think of where it was sunny enough for ice cream and this is the only one I’ve seen at a graduation!
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
A ‘celebrity’ moment, underneath the balcony in Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
The new evening ceremonies add a fresh perspective to the event.
Image © Thomas Angus, Imperial College London [Click Image to expand]
At the end of the day. (Although the video team are probably still in there working somewhere)
…and finally! I hope Colin doesn’t mind a cross post to his Imperial College Video Archive Blog, but there’s some joyous Commemoration day history in video there:
https://blogs.imperial.ac.uk/videoarchive/commemoration-day/
View all the images from this set
Imperial staff and students can view all the original images featured in the post on the Imperial College London Asset Library.
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Watch this introduction to photography video course on Lynda.com (College users have free access to Lynda courses)