WHEN it comes to capturing the Essence of Essex you couldn’t do much better than someone who has worked for the local newspaper for the last 30 years.

Which is why when Colchester’s Firstsite art gallery were looking for photographic champions for their latest exhibition, one of the photographers they chose was the Gazette’s very own Nigel Brown.

“I was chuffed to bits when they asked me,” he smiles. “I’ve been working in the county for so many years now I like to think I’ve got a grasp on how it ticks and what images capture the essence of the place but to be involved in this exhibition is a real honour.”

The Essence of Essex is an open submission photography exhibition and competition which is currently running alongside internationally acclaimed documentary photographer Martin Parr’s Work and Leisure show, a touring exhibition organised by The Hepworth Wakefield.

Amateur and professional photographers have been invited to submit work, via the Firstsite website, which suggest individual interpretations of the ‘Essence of Essex’.

Since it started last month a growing online gallery of images have accumulated, which Firstsite has then exhibited in the gallery space on a rolling basis.

Nigel adds: “There are ten photographic champions in all who have been chosen because of the different areas that we cover and each week one of us gets to pick our favourite of the shots that have been submitted.

“Those then go forward to the final, where one winner which will be chosen by Martin himself.”

Born and brought up in Gloucestershire, Nigel got given his first camera when he just 12 year old.

He adds: “It was a Kodak Instamatic and I think the first ever picture I took was the standard family shot on holiday.

“I was interested in photography right from an early age and even before that I used to draw a lot so the visual has been a constant in my life from childhood.

“But I suppose when I knew this might be the career for me was when I got to college and I saw that first black and white photograph develop in the dark room. I was pretty much hooked after that.”

Soon after Nigel got a job as an assistant to a photographer and then spent three years with an industrial photographic company, which he grins was ‘basically going a little bit mad in a dark room for three years but taught me how to produce high quality black and white prints’.

Then one day Nigel found himself walking past the offices of the Wiltshire and Gloucestershire Standard.

“I just popped in to see if they had any jobs going,” he adds, “and they did. But I didn’t know what had hit me when I started. I didn’t know what being a press photographer was all about but I had to learn pretty darn quickly.”

One of the highlights in the five years he was there was photographing the Princess of Wales.

“It was my first experience of the press scrum,” he laughs. “She was opening a nursery in Cirencester and there was about 40 other photographers there. It was mad but she was, as you might expect, really gracious about it all.

“I also got to photographer John Hurt who was amazing, a really lovely guy. He was doing something at a local theatre and after we had done the shoot came over and specifically asked me if I had all the pictures I needed.”

In 1986 Nigel made the move to Essex to work in an area which was ‘far more newsy than I had ever experience back at home’.

Another baptism of fire, within six weeks of starting he was sent over to Northern Ireland to cover the local troops who were on duty there.

“I also got to go to Kosovo and Bosnia covering the Army,” he tells me, “and was once on the Queen’s Flight which was very exciting.”

But apart from Army duties there have been plenty other exciting jobs working for the paper.

“I suppose one of my proudest moments was when I went to cover a ferry that had collided with a ship off Harwich and I remember the news editor taking her first look at my photographs and swearing.

“Then there’s all the times I’ve covered the V Festival, having Skunk Anansie’s Skin shove her crutch in my camera and then someone throwing a shoe at the Prodigy on stage which ended up smashing one of my lens.”

Outside of the newspaper in more recent years, Nigel has developed a growing reputation for his travel photography.

“I’ve been to quite a few places,” he says, “but what I enjoy most is taking people’s photographs. You can see so much in a person’s face and I continue to find that fascinating wherever I go.”

But it’s his pictures closer to home that are currently getting an outing with a whole selection of his work, as well as Firstsite’s other champions, on show as part of the Essence of Essex competition.

“I think it helps that I’ve basically been an outsider looking in for 30 years now,” Nigel adds. “When I was asked to supply some of my own pictures it was pretty hard going through them but what I wanted to show was the county’s quirkiness and diversity.”

The Essence of Essex Photography Competition closes on September 12 with the winners announced at a special evening on September 29.

Click here for more details.