Mark Somerville's Winning Photographic Entry

 The Open Photography exhibition where 35 works, out of a total 70 entries were displayed in the small section of the gallery at Apsley House on 17 March 2020 was never really seen by many people at all. By 18 March, before the opening night, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery was closed because of a Covid lockdown. The Friends' committee had agreed to choose a prize winner and give them £100, but we hadn't chosen the winner before lockdown, three of the Friends' committee were allowed into Apsley House on 26 February 2021 to choose the winner of the FSMAG prize. Here's David Hughes in front of the one we chose as a winner, but looking across at other entries.

I took a few more photos:

which give an idea of what a lovely exhibition it was

I found it very difficult to pick my favourite, and since there were three of us looking round, it was difficult to reach a consensus

Below some information about how wonderful it was to host a photography exhibition, with two photographs of piers by Chris Waddell.

And this one was very clever, I really like it, it's by Richard Maidment, the text with it says: 'A person stands in a gallery facing a monumental artwork. The figures in the painting appear to confront the lone visitor, seeking answers to a question we do not know.

 The Link magazine publicised the exhibition here: https://swindonlink.com/14866/open-photography-exhibition/ on 5 July this year, and we intended to visit Mark Somerville, our winner with his entry entitled 'C2036' seen below since we were unable to give him his prize in person:

 We finally visited Mark Somerville's studio in September to chat about his work, here he is with his winning entry:

Mark's working method produces beautiful images, Rosemary summarised the visit:

'In his garden studio one hot day this September, we met Mark for an interview and to see the photograph that won the 2020 competition at the Swindon Museum & Art Gallery.   The pandemic struck at the very time of the exhibition in the Gallery whereupon the building closed and no further access has been allowed.   However, The Friends of SM&AG had awarded Mark with the first prize of £100 which was delivered to him without the desired ceremony by a member of the Swindon Borough Council museum staff.

We wished to meet Mark to affirm our delight at his win and to see more of his work.   His photography had been landscapes and Wiltshire has no shortage of interest here.  However, with the advent of smartphones and digital cameras available for anyone to capture the images, he turned to ‘applied photographic art’, definitely a unique field.   This starts with a photograph, manipulated, enhanced, created with computerised additions to produce remarkable images.    The results are startling shapes, unexpected angles, infilled with colours and shading. 

Recently he took part in the Marlborough Open Studios weekend for public viewing.  We hope many people will continue to enjoy his splendid works'

I really enjoyed the visit, and was intrigued by many of his pieces, there's so much to see in them, the one above I particularly liked. Below I've included some information from Mark's website:

Conventionally, pressing the shutter is the final act in taking a photo. For Mark it is just the beginning. With his own stylistic route map in mind, this is the starting point of a journey: Images evolve as they are worked up, sometimes arriving at completely different destinations to those first thought of. Such is the nature of abstraction, Mark starts to see the potential as he deconstructs then reassembles the image into its final composition.

Describing his working process, Mark compares it to composing a piece of music. He establishes a melody and then taking inspiration from a variety of sources, adds layers around it, be it an optical illusion, loss of scale or a shift in colour space. Then finally, a suggested narrative i.e. the words that bring the piece to life. These, of course, are his words and it is for others to make their own interpretation.

Finally he lives in a beautiful part of Wiltshire, I loved the stones used to build his house, I'd certainly recommend a visit if he takes part in next year's MOS