Stuart's photo is picture perfect

A local bus driver with an eye for imagery has snapped up a European photography award.

Stuart Lowerson, who works from Arriva’s Hexham bus depot, spotted a photo opportunity on Dilston Bridge near Hexham while on his bus route, and went back later to check it out.

After finding a boulder to sit on in the middle of the river, he snapped a 685 bus travelling from Carlisle to Newcastle across the bridge over Devil’s Water.

He then submitted his picture to Arriva’s photography competition, open to all its 37,000 employees across Europe and which has attracted hundreds of entries in its first year.

After winning a quarterly award for his picture’s ‘focus, balance and perspective’, Stuart’s photo was entered as one of four finalists for the annual award, judged by transport magazine Transit.

Stuart, aged 58, was awarded Arriva Photo of the Year 2007 after seeing off stiff competition from colleagues, with particularly strong entries from Italy and Portugal.

Judges said it represented the role of a passenger transport group, taking people from one place to another.

His eye for a picture has netted him a total of £950 in prizes from Arriva’s photo competition in 2007.

Stuart said: “Photography has been a great hobby of mine for years but this is the first time I’ve entered my pictures into a competition. I’m always on the lookout for new photo opportunities. Sometimes when I am out driving my bus I’ll see a potential picture and will go back later to check it out.”

The picture took Stuart two visits and five hours to take. “I sat on a boulder in the middle of the river, watching the buses pass, but it had to be of one going very slowly for me to get the right shot. Luckily, this one was following a tractor so I took my chance.”

Julie Jobling, of Arriva’s corporate communications team said: “We’ve been amazed at the popularity of the competition. Photos are streaming in from all across Europe. The quality of the pictures makes the competition a pleasure for the judges and we’re using some of the images in our corporate literature.”

Stuart, who is married and lives in Crawcrook, says he is swapping his rural backdrops for city centre night-time images for the 2008 competition, but doesn’t want to give away too many of his creative ideas.

All Arriva’s photography competition winning entries and runners-up can be viewed at the Arriva media centre.