Best of Birmingham announced as Heritage Week kick starts

Birmingham’s culture and heritage is set to be celebrated over the next 10 days, following a launch event for Birmingham Heritage Week where winners of the Best of Birmingham photography competition were announced.

The event, hosted at Birmingham Cathedral on Wednesday September 6, officially kicked off the week, which is taking place at venues across the city from September 7 – 17 September.

Winners of a city-wide photography competition have been picked to coincide with the launch of Birmingham Heritage Week, which showcase some of the city’s most loved and iconic places by budding Birmingham photographers, and will form an exhibition later this year.

The Best of Birmingham competition, launched by Instagramers of Birmingham, Birmingham Museums Trust and Brumpic, has been running throughout the summer and asked the people of Birmingham to photograph the best that the city has to offer.

25 images have been chosen, with winners including Kris Askey (@krisaskey), Ella Mullins, @ellamullins and Tim Cornbill (@timcornbill).

The images showcase Birmingham’s people, culture and buildings, with snaps including the Birmingham markets, Moor Street Station, Clent Hills, Digbeth, and Sarehole Mill.

18-year-old photographer Sam McAuliffe (@sam_mcauliffe) from Erdington has been named overall winner, with his image of the Birmingham canals with The Cube in the background. As winner, Sam will see his image used on marketing and promotional material for the exhibition.

Beth Astington of IGers Birmingham, said: “We are incredibly excited about this project and collaborating with Birmingham Museums Trust, which is such a prestigious and important organisation. The entries were of extremely high standard which is testament to the talent within the IGers Birmingham community.”

The images will be framed and displayed at an exhibition at the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter from November to January, along with 25 highly commended images which will be shown digitally for the first week.

Images will be available to purchase, with all proceeds going towards supporting Birmingham Museums Trust.