A PUBLIC vote crowned two winners at the Swindon Photographic Society annual exhibition at the Brunel Centre.

The society, which has been running the exhibition for more than a hundred years, displayed colour and monochrome prints by its members and asked visitors to decide a winner for the 'People's Choice' award.

The two photos, Anna Stowe's Sunset Over the Downs, and David Taylor's Escape both got seven per cent of the vote, out of 96 print photographs on display.

Professional photographer Anna Stowe, who joined what was then Swindon Camera Club thirty years ago, told the Adver about her piece “I wanted to take a picture of somewhere local with a nice view, which also had some foreground interest,” she said.

“It was taken on the Swindon to Baydon Road, which is beautiful, it’s got lovely views across to Liddington Hill and across Aldbourne.

“It was one of these days that had been quite showery, and often when that happens you know it could be a good sunset because there will be enough clouds in the sky.

“It was a lovely warm and golden sunset in September, so the landscape was beginning to look a bit autumnal, and the distance gave a slight purple haze to it.

“Sometimes its hard to stand back and be critical and see the faults in your work," she said.

"But if the public, who haven’t got that emotional involvement, still like it then then it’s reassuring it’s a good picture."

Anna will be displaying her work at the Swindon Open Studios in September.

Second winner David Taylor, from Shrivenham, who has been a member of the society for two years, took his winning photo near Ross-on-Wye.

“It was a railway that looked like it ran into a old mine. It was in the late winter early spring and the light was very good.

"We went there relatively early so the sun was quite low in the morning and there was kind of dappled light on the front and then good light at the back.

"Its maybe telling a story about someone potentially walking out into something better. Because one side is very dark and mysterious and there walking out into a brighter place. That was my idea behind it.

“It’s all very sharp as well, you can see the intricate detail on the brickwork of the tunnel with some light breaking onto, contrasted with the open light at the end of the tunnel.”

The exhibition is a chance for Swindon's photographers to show off their work and to allow the public to get up close with some local photographer's work.

Spokesperson from the Swindon Photographic Society John Day said: "“It was very nice to have to a lot of people who wouldn’t normally stop and look at photographs come along.

“The vote gives us an idea of what the majority of the public like in a photograph. The winners were both excellent pictures. We had all kinds of styles there as well, from street photography, abstract, everything that you can imagine.

"There is no limit with what you can take with a photograph, far more than you used to able to because of digital photography’s power to experiment and manipulate.”