Birmingham-based architect Philip Singleton has won a prestigious global photography competition.
The former Birmingham City Council design chief and now consultant to Colmore Business Improvement District (BID) was awarded the top prize in the ‘Mobile’ category in this year’s CBRE Urban Photographer of the Year competition for his picture ‘Marseilles City Style’ of the new Mucem (museum) structure in the French city.
A keen photographer, Philip was awarded a Masters in photography from Falmouth University in 2018. When he’s not working on managing the delivery of public realm improvement projects and buildings in London and Birmingham, he can be found behind a lens capturing Birmingham’s architecture and lost spaces.
Philip, who has lived and worked in Birmingham for 29 years, said:
“Much of my photography work is focused on buildings and spaces, a natural inspiration for an architect.
“I was in Marseille taking a close look at the dockside buildings and was fascinated by the extraordinary new Musem structure, with its clever facade that shades the whole building from the intense Mediterranean sun.
“Holding my iPhone, I waited for a person to walk by, then the moment struck. She gave a sense of scale to the facade.”
As well as the winning prize of a GoPro Hero7 camera kit, Philip’s picture will be featured in a book with all the other winning images.
Now in its 12th year, The Urban Photographer of the Year competition is run annually by CBRE. Both amateur and professional photographers were invited to submit photos that capture their vision of a future city, with more than 100,000 entries received from across the world.
Alfonso Béjar, from Spain, was named the overall winner of the competition for his image, “Reflexion,” which captures a futuristic structure and its near-perfect mirror image in Valencia, Spain.
This year, CBRE introduced an Instagram category, acknowledging social media’s impact on the way photography is captured, shared and discovered. To enter, users submitted their photographs via the social media channel.
Martin Samworth, CBRE group president and CEO, advisory services for APAC/EMEA and the competition’s executive sponsor, said:
“This year’s competition provided fascinating insight into how photographers around the globe envision our cities of the future.”
