The Lightbox Director, Marilyn Scott, writes about what she has been up to in the last month.

We had a great night at The Lightbox on Tuesday, two private views in one evening. We welcomed Churches Together in Woking to the opening of their new display in Woking’s Story charting the history of the many churches in the Borough and the role they play in our community. The Mayor of Woking attended and it was a very special occasion for us.

Later in the evening we presented prizes for or Surrey Open Photographic competition in front of a big audience of competitors, friends and family. It was a really happy relaxed occasion and after the prizegiving everyone made their way to the gallery to enjoy the superb photographic work on show. This is the first time we have run this competition and we were thrilled with the number of entries and the enthusiasm from local photographers to participate.

We hope to make this a regular feature of our programme. High quality photographic shows are hard to find and every time we show photography at The Lightbox it is so popular. Our recent Hollywood photography show was so successful and in the past the work of contemporary photographer Lawrence Watson has attracted a large audience so we will keep it coming! It's a great start to 2015 for us and we look forward to the rest of the year!

The winners of the Surrey Open Photographic competition were Giles Harvey, who was awarded the ‘Judges Prize’ and Holly Menzies, who won the ‘Young Photographers Prize’.



Speaking about his winning piece, Giles said: ‘‘Polly’ is a silhouette of my daughter taken against a wedding marquee early one morning when I noticed that the light and shadows at that time were perfect for a photograph.’

Sixteen year old Holly is currently a student on a pre-degree arts course at University for the Creative Arts and she explained that for her photograph, which shows the  reflection of a Concorde, she had wanted to ‘capture the idea of using reflection to evoke a feeling of both past and present.’

Don't forget to visit the Surrey Open Photographic exhibition and vote for your favourite piece for the People's Prize!

Image credits: Alan Brown, Hein Velissarides, Aileen McLeish, The Mayor of Woking Cllr Tony Branagan, MP Jonathan Lord, Marilyn Scott Director of The Lightbox  © The Lightbox; 'Polly' © Giles Harvey; Memory of Concorde © Holly Menzies.