Creative Directors
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Jonathan Blyth BA(Hons) PGCE MA



Jon is a creative practitioner and educationalist in photographic culture. He is a part time lecturer at University College Falmouth and Plymouth College of Art. As a director of FOTONOW CIC, he facilitates and delivers socially motivated projects in lens-based culture to a diverse community throughout the South West of England.
On gaining a 1st class BA(Hons) in Photography from Nottingham Trent University in 2000, Blyth worked in photographic research at the university and as a photographer for Lief Interior Design and Dance Four before moving to France to follow his interest in teaching through Czech Republic and Poland. After completing a PGCE in Secondary Education Art and Design at Oxford Brookes University in 2006 he was then awarded support from the Arts Humanities Research Council and moved to Cornwall to study MA Photography.
In 2007 he co-founded POST Journal for Arts Culture and Research, a bi-annual publication that focuses on the creative arts in the SW of England with the emphasis placed on the creative culture of postgraduate study and research produced from University College Falmouth and Dartington College of Arts. Blyth has exhibited work at Norwich Arts Centre in the Norwich Open, POSK, Polish Centre (London) and his underwater series Re-Enchanting Photography at Photo Stroud, Festival of Photography 2007 (Stroud).
Based in Plymouth, his contemporary visual practice evolves through a long-standing interest with the phenomenological aspects of water, memory and photography. Blyth works with photographic archives and the contemporary histories of swimming communities across Devon and Cornwall with the aim of creating new visual and oral heritage.

Email: jon@fotonow.org


Matthew Pontin BA(Hons) MA



Matthew has lived in the South West since gaining an MA in Photography in 2005 at University College Falmouth, where since taught photography. He is currently a part-time lecturer in photography on BA(Hons) Photography programme at Plymouth College of Art. Previously, in 2002 he received a First Class BA(Hons) in Photojournalism from Swansea Metropolitan University (University of Wales) and soon after was awarded the Welsh Graduate Photography Prize culminating in the publication and exhibition 'Ha-Ha: Margam Revisited' for Ffotogallery (Cardiff). In 2003 he received Millennium award funding to publish 'Street Pigeons' which was launched alongside an exhibition in Swansea. Pontin has been a freelance photographic artist for several years, his personal practice exploring the notion of social mobility, working across fine-art, documentary and supporting his interest in community collaboration. In 2006 he curated the successful Arts Council England show 'Unravelling Photography' at Quay Arts (Isle of Wight) and was commissioned as artist in residence at Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World (CCANW, Haldon Forest). He exhibits nationally, in 2007 at Bargate Monument Gallery (Southampton) and G39 (Cardiff) and in 2008 as part of 'Cultural Memory' exhibition at the University of Kent (Canterbury). Also last year he had photographs and critical text published in the University of Alberta academic journal 'Space and Culture' and during that year worked as lead photographic artist for Hidden City festival in Plymouth and was commissioned by South West Screen to work on TOR project developing a film over five months with a group of young people. Currently Pontin is working to develop a project in Stonehouse (Plymouth) and exploring the social history of the nearby Victoria Park.

Email: matt@fotonow.org