I’m John Medany, a Buckinghamshire-based photographer and IT professional. I discovered AUB's MA Photography (Online) degree after many years of photographing around work, travel, hobbies and everyday life, but the course helped me slow down and think more carefully about what I was really trying to show.

Between Turns grew out of a community I know well: tabletop gaming. I have been part of that world for years, so the challenge was not simply gaining access, but learning to look again at something very familiar. At first, I thought I was making a project about board games and conventions. Over time, it became much more about people: how they gather, concentrate, teach, wait, help and make space for each other around a table.

The final work is a square photo book made from photographs taken at gaming conventions and clubs, including HandyCon and GridCon. It moves from empty rooms before play begins, into the colour and noise of active tables, and then back towards quieter moments of invitation and pause. Some images stand alone, but many work as pairs, sequences or double-page spreads, because the meaning often sits between moments rather than in one single frame. For that reason, a small number of the showcase selections are presented as sequences rather than single photographs.

Between Turns is about the small social acts that make a gaming table work. It looks at attention, belonging and the quiet rituals of play, and asks how photography can make that visible to people who may never have sat at one of these tables.

After the degree, I plan to continue developing my photographic practice alongside my professional work in IT. The MA has given me the confidence to treat photography as a serious research-led practice, not just something I do around the edges of work and life.

I particularly want to keep developing Between Turns, as a photo book and also as a possible exhibition or talk, and to look for opportunities to share the work with both photographic and gaming communities. I am also interested in using what I have learned to support others, especially through mentoring, informal teaching and helping people think about sequencing, project development and visual storytelling.

As a mature student, I do not see this as the start of a completely new career, but as an important broadening of my existing one. I want to bring together my experience in technology, communication and photography, and continue making work that explores community, attention and the ways people gather around shared interests.