Photographers show 'pretty as a postcard' snaps

Sunday 19 May 2019

Four local photographers, who proved their work could still 'wow' when shrunk to small-scale, are to have their snaps transformed into postcards.

The opportunity for the four snappers - Paul Lakeman, Alan Pryor, Sheila Birch and Vince Thorne - came as the result of a competition launched alongside the opening of a new Harbour Gallery exhibition.

‘Our Island Through the Lens’, which started this week, presents the island as captured by 14 local photographers and shows Jersey in a variety of different lights and seasons as well as from different angles and perspectives.

The 14 exhibitors taking part are Paul Lakeman, Gary Power, Alex Clifford, Jill Browne, Marc Whitehead, Annie Queree, Alan Pryor, Carla Butler, Colin Griffiths, Vince Thorne, Vic Tucker, Paul Herbert, Sheila Birch, and Bam Perspectives - all of whom stood a chance of having their work turned into postcards.

Pictured: The photography exhibition has opened at the Harbour Gallery (Carla Butler).

Judges carefully considered each design, with their winning four choices announced on the opening night of the exhibition: Paul Lakeman for his image of Mont Orgueil Castle, Alan Pryor's photo of sunset over La Rocco Tower, Sheila Birch with her 'Cows in the Mist' picture and Vince Thorne's 'Stormy Corbiere'.

The collection of works aims to showcase the island’s varied landscape in an unusual way to both locals and visitors.

Chairman of the Art in the Frame Foundation – the charity which manages the gallery space – and Director of the Harbour Gallery said choosing the winners was "a very difficult decision" as the judges had to choose from a range of "very beautiful, ethereal and arty images", whilst bearing in mind that "they were looking for images for postcards, not images to go on a wall."

Pictured: The exhibition showcases Jersey 'through the lens' (Carla Butler).

This, Pat explained, meant that the "images scaled down had to look as good as they did large scale" and that they needed to be "attractive for the public, not necessarily for the art connoisseur".

The images will be made into postcards for the gallery next week and each of the four chosen artists will also receive a bundle of 100 of their postcards. Members of the public can purchase the postcards from the gallery in exchange for a donation the Art in the Frame Foundation, which is celebrating its 21st birthday this year.

The exhibition was officially opened by CEO of Visit Jersey Keith Beecham on Thursday 16 May where there was also a raffle held to raise funds for the Foundation.