Photo credit (above): David Tovey
The Judges’ Choice winning image, by Alex Davies, who died before receiving her award
Alex Davies won the Judges’ Choice award in the My London calendar competition, which involved more than 100 people affected by homelessness taking pictures using single-use cameras.
The contest was run by Café Art, an organisation which aims to connect homeless people with the wider community through art.
Alex, whose photo of a man in a cream-coloured suit was chosen as the September image (above), died recently, organisers said.
Alex had not been aware she had won the award at the time of her death, though she knew her work would be featured in the calendar.
‘We were very shocked to hear, a few weeks ago, that Alex Davies had passed away,’ said Café Art director Paul Ryan.
Speaking at an awards ceremony at Spitalfields Market in east London, this lunchtime, he added: ‘Unfortunately, Alex never saw the calendar printed. She was very proud of it. She saw the PDF [file] and emailed it to everybody she knew.’
John Spencer, who had a photo published in last year’s calendar, told Amateur Photographer that the award would serve as a fitting memory for Alex’s family.
Alex’s mother, Sue Davies, collects her daughter’s Judges’ Choice award in a presentation ceremony held at Spitalfields Market [Photo credit: C Cheesman]
The street photographers shot thousands images for the project, which was backed by the Royal Photographic Society.
The My London calendar goes on sale from today, priced £9.99.
It is available from vendors (in a similar way to the Big Issue), and through the Café Art website at www.cafeart.org.uk.
An exhibition of the best entries runs until 19 October at Spitalfields Market.
The public voted this shot, by Zsolt Krisztian Nagy, their favourite
