Timothy Cummings wins Our Gibraltar Competition

Timothy Cumming won the top prize at the Our Gibraltar competition with his photo ‘At Home En El Qwari’. 

Mr Cumming was awarded the prize during a presentation led by Gibraltar Cultural Services Chief Cultural Officer Seamus Byrne and Forty Azzopardi from the SDGG at the opening of the annual exhibition held at the Fine Arts Gallery. 

Mr Cumming told the Chronicle that he didn’t expect to win and decided to showcase some of the photos he has taken over the past few month by entering the images in this competition. 

He won two prizes the overall prize called the Ministry of Culture Award and the 2nd prize in the photography category for his drone image ‘Our Rock Under A Sunset Cloud’. 

His photo ‘At Home En El Qwari’ shows three women relaxing in Camp Bay and knitting. The image is a typical sight in at local beaches which the artist captured. 

“The quarry photo has been something I’ve wanted to do for a while,” he said. 

“I don’t know the women very intimately, but I always sit very close to them [at the beach] for the past few years. I just asked them as I’ve always found that them together was quite an interesting composition.” 

“So I asked them this year.” 

The event has been organised by Gibraltar Cultural Services (GCS), on behalf of the Self Determination for Gibraltar Group (SDGG), and in association with the Fine Arts Association and the Gibraltar Photographic Society. The exhibition was officially opened on Tuesday 25th August 2026. 

A panel of judges consisting of Jim Crone, Greer Jennison and Gino Sanguinetti judged the competition.  

When selecting the winners they looked for technical skills, competency and emotion. 

“We applied that to everything,” Ms Jennison said. 

“So that we knew how to mark the winners of all of them that included photography and painting, and sculpture.” 

The Our Gibraltar Art Award for Painting, Drawing, Prints, Digital Painting and Sculptures 1st Prize and £750 cash prize was awarded to Anna Latin for ‘Tariq’s Mountain’, and the 2nd Prize in this category with a £250 cash prize was awarded to Paul Lavagna for ‘Camp Bay (El Quarry) No2’. 

The Our Gibraltar Photography Award 1st Prize and £750 cash prize was presented to Stephen Cumming ‘Gibraltar: Against The Odds’. 

The following received ‘Highly Commended’ certificates: Hannah Cavilla Latin for ‘Resilience’, Derek Duarte for ‘When The Cave Hits 40°C’, Stephen Hermida for ‘January’, and Joanne Bossano for ‘Historic Beacon Reborn’. 

The Exhibition is open to the public until Friday, September 11, 2026, weekdays 9.30am to 3.30pm. 

All the judges’ comments 

JUDGES’ COMMENTS: Overall winner Timothy Cumming ‘At Home En El Qwari’ - It's evocative. It speaks and it has emotion and humour and colour. This style of photography is what's known as social documentary. You're taking a photograph of what a society is about. There’s a sense of place, they're having fun, and that communicates. We're going to walk away and in two or three hours we will remember that photo. 

JUDGES’ COMMENTS: Art Award 1st Prize Anna Latin ‘Tariq’s Mountain’ - It's very abstract. But you know what it is. It tells you what it is. Even though it's abstract it's the rock. It gives you a sense of the energy. If we think of all the tectonic plates of movement of the straits and all that. I mean literally it looks like an earthquake. It's timeless. That could be yesterday, and it could be 13,000 years ago. 

JUDGES’ COMMENTS: Art Award 2nd Prize Paul Lavagna ‘Camp Bay (El Quarry) No2’ - Really lovely colours. This work pretty much all about technique and skill. It shows you exactly what it represents. It's very relevant and everybody knows what that is and the skill is very good. It has a sense of a cubist feel that has a tension. 

JUDGES’ COMMENTS: Photography Award 1st Prize Stephen Cumming ‘Gibraltar: Against The Odds’ - This was interesting. Because. Is there like a commentary going on here. Where clearly the statue which everyone knows is representative of a military Gibraltar of the past. And the old fortress walls that we know so well have now been replaced with new fortress walls, which are the multi-storey tower blocks. The new walls of Gibraltar. The new fortress. 

JUDGES’ COMMENTS: Photography Award 2nd Prize Timothy Cumming ‘Our Rock Under A Sunset Cloud’ - The interesting thing here is drone photography, which has become a new form of photography. Where you put a drone up. and take a high resolution photograph. But the point is it's a perspective we don't see. The drone pilot, in this case the photographer has chosen a time of day that doesn't represent Gibraltar in bright sunlight. And here's the beautiful rock on a sunny day. It's just showing. The quintessential forming of the Levanter cloud at the setting of the sun.