‘Because I’m a Londoner’ Photo Competition Launched With Focus On London’s New Normal

High-res images: Available to download here: DropBox

Visit London have teamed up with Photocrowd and the Museum of London, to offer Londoners a chance to showcase the best of their local area and the people and places of London, as restrictions begin to ease and the capital emerges from lockdown. Entrants do not need to be professional photographers to join the contest, just have a phone or camera at the ready.

The free to enter competition, part of the #BecauseImALondoner campaign, encourages participants to share what they love about London. Launching on Saturday 4 July, and coinciding with the opening of many of the things that Londoners have been patiently waiting to see and do, it aims to encourage residents to safely explore their own areas.

It offers the capital’s city dwellers a chance to support their local area, by highlighting people enjoying nearby businesses and venues; from markets, independent shops and hairdressers, to museums or a legendary community restaurant and everything in between.

The competition, which runs until 21 August, will be judged by leading photographer and Founder of whatweseee.com, Misan Harriman, Museum of London’s curator of photographs, Jilke Golbach, Justine Simmons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries, Mayor of London’s Office and Laura Citron, London & Partners CEO. Entrants stand the chance to win photography equipment, photography books and have their work displayed on the Museum of London website.

Laura Citron, Chief Executive Officer of London & Partners which runs Visit London said: “We’re delighted to work with one of our partners, the Museum of London, in calling on Londoners to snap away and share their new normal, as they safely rediscover their local neighbourhoods and celebrate what’s open across London. As businesses begin to open safely, we are inviting Londoners to shine a spotlight on their local areas and show that going out locally is a way to support other Londoners and stand in solidarity with the city. Support your local area by rediscovering some of the incredible places that make up your neighbourhood, from cafes and cinemas to galleries and museums, without placing a strain on public transport. Use the #BecauseImALondoner hashtag, to join us in a social conversation and tell your London stories and what it means to be a Londoner!”

Photos can be in colour or black and white and the competition closes on Friday 21 August at 1pm (GMT) with winners announced on Monday 31 August. The expert judge’s winner, will win a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ70 Digital Camera and the top 3 will receive either a copy of London Nights or People of London, by Hoxton Mini Press.

To enter the photo contest and for the full terms and conditions, please sign up at http://www.photocrowd.com/becauseimalondoner and create a Photocrowd user account to directly upload images.

Jilke Golbach, Museum of London’s Curator of Photographs said: “We are delighted to support and showcase this campaign which celebrates the people and places of London as they come out of Lockdown. It perfectly matches the aims of the Museum of London which tells the ever-changing story of this great world city and its people.”

The Because I’m a Londoner campaign is a new citywide campaign to build consumer confidence and encourage a responsible recovery in consumer spending, led by a London Alliance of more than 400 major London businesses and brought together by London & Partners and supported by the Mayor of London, London Councils and Transport for London. 

The Because I’m a Londoner campaign aims to inspire Londoners to safely explore their own areas and support local businesses, boosting consumer confidence and stimulating spending, to help the city reshape and recover. It will support London’s culture, retail, hospitality and events sectors to thrive while we adapt to life after coronavirus lockdown is lifted, saving the jobs of some of the most vulnerable Londoners, and securing the unique culture and lifestyle that make London a global magnet for talent and investment.

Justine Simmons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries, Mayor of London’s Office: “Culture and lifestyle is an integral part of London’s DNA and is a big reason so many of us choose to live and work here. This photography contest offers a chance to showcase London’s unique character and dynamism in the current time.”

About London & Partners and visitlondon.com

Visitlondon.com is the official visitor guide to London and is run by London & Partners, London’s international trade, investment and promotion agency. Its role is to promote London internationally as a leading world city in which to visit, study, invest, grow and meet. Its mission is to tell London’s story brilliantly to an international audience.

London & Partners is a not-for-profit company. We are half funded by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and half from other sources including commercial activity. For more information visit londonandpartners.com

Visitlondon.com is a comprehensive resource for everything that is happening in London. At any one time, this includes 20,000 event listings, plus content designed to inspire and assist visitors. Visitlondon.com is available in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. Each month visitlondon.com attracts more than 3.5m visits and its social media channels have 1.75m followers. For more information visit visitlondon.com

 Laura Citron

Laura Citron is CEO of London & Partners, London’s international trade, investment and promotion agency. She leads the organisation to grow London’s global reputation and to attract business, tourists, students, events and talent to London. Laura has spent her career at the intersection of business, policy and communications. Prior to London & Partners, she was Managing Director of the Government & Public Sector Practice at WPP, the world’s largest marketing and communication services business. She taught communications for behaviour change at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Before joining WPP, Laura spent several years as a UK public servant in London and Brussels. She has also lived and worked in Russia and Germany. A proud Londoner, Laura has a postgraduate degree in Economics from University College London. 

Misan Harriman

Photographer Misan Harriman is a major talent whose strong reportage style and unique eye for narrative has captured the attention of editors and celebrities around the world. From documenting historic moments in history, most recently the Black Lives Matter movement in London, to photographing high profile celebrities, including Stormzy, Tom Cruise, Adwoa Aboah, Giorgio Armani, Kylie Minogue, Cate Blanchett and Olivia Colman, Harriman is a photographer of extraordinary range.   His commissions include royal, private and high profile portraiture as well as reportage documenting and covering behind the scenes at major awards, music festivals and film sets.  His striking images have featured in Vanity Fair, Vogue UK, Harpers Bazaar, People Magazine and The Telegraph among others.  Nigerian born, Harriman was educated in England where he developed a life-long love for the arts. This led him to picking up a camera and honing his craft. Harriman is completely self-taught, his work inspired by Gordon Parks, Sally Mann, Eve Arnold, Bruce Davidson and Peter Lindbergh. www.whatweseee.com

Jilke Golbach

Jilke Golbach is Curator of Photographs at the Museum of London. She was previously Assistant Curator at the Barbican Art Gallery, where she worked on the critically acclaimed exhibitions and accompanying publications ‘Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing’ (2018) and ‘Strange and Familiar: Britain as Revealed by International Photographers’ (2016). Her interdisciplinary doctoral research at UCL focuses on culture-led regeneration, urban heritage and the right to the city. 

Justine Simons OBE

Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries, Mayor of London’s Office and is the Founder and Chair of the World Cities Culture Forum. Justine is pioneering ground breaking cultural policy; from Creative Enterprise Zones to the new London Borough of Culture Award , from the first ever Cultural Infrastructure Plan to the UK’s first Night Czar. Justine believes culture is central to London’s success as a global city and has the power to transform lives and places. She has shaped the most ambitious cultural strategy to establish London as a leading global creative capital and is leading the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games legacy, East Bank - the most significant new cultural and education district to be established in London in 150 years. Justine established the Fourth Plinth as a global exemplar for public sculpture and chaired the commission that put the first statue of a woman on London’s Parliament Square.

Businesses from across London can join  londonandpartners.com/joinalliance and sign up for access to a wide range of free-to-use downloadable assets, which will help them to promote their business responsibly to customers in their local area, as well as help them encourage their networks to sign up and take part.  

Fast Facts:

• Hospitality, culture, retail, leisure, and tourism employs one in five Londoners and generates £62bn GVA.​
• These sectors employ disproportionately vulnerable and under-represented Londoners.
• Loss of employment and a decline in real wages in these sectors will therefore have particularly severe impacts for vulnerable communities. ​
• Businesses in these sectors are highly exposed to cash flow, consumer demand and find it more difficult to borrow.  ​
• These sectors create the culture and lifestyle which underpin London’s global competitiveness for talent and investors.
• The capital is home to almost a quarter of a million SMEs in sectors which could benefit from, including retail, food, hospitality and the creative industries, employing about 800,000 people. Many have seen their income fall dramatically as a result of the restrictions introduced to limit the spread of coronavirus.

 About Photocrowd

Photocrowd is a global community of photographers, of all levels and interests, and a platform for some of the best photo contests and photo awards around. photocrowd.com

About The Museum of London

The Museum of London tells the ever-changing story of this great world city and its people, from 450,000 BC to the present day. Our galleries, exhibitions, displays and activities seek to inspire a passion for London and provide a sense of the vibrancy that makes the city such a unique place. You can explore the Museum of London with collections online – home to 90,000 objects with more being added. www.museumoflondon.org.uk