A PHOTOGRAPHER is over the moon after one of his pictures was picked for the first ever exhibition to be staged in the final frontier of space.

Tollesbury-based Tom McGahan’s photo was chosen from 40,000 hopefuls for an out-of-this-world exhibition 130,000 ft up in the stratosphere.

A weather balloon was used to take a special e-photo frame containing 400 images from all over the world into space.

A camera filmed the virtual exhibition – with planet Earth as the spectacular backdrop.

The photos will also be beamed through space where they could even be picked up by alien worlds.

Professional photographer Tom, 47, said: “Because of everything that has been going on this year, they can’t do shows in galleries so they decided to do this.

“I didn’t know if it was going up in a rocket or how it was going to happen but they used a weather balloon.

“The idea was the backdrop to the pictures would be space and the Earth.

“They are also changing all the images into binary code and sending them across the universe so they could be picked up by alien life.”

Tom’s photo is called Grace and is of a woman standing in the River Blackwater.

Halstead Gazette:

“It represents transcendence,” he said.

“I was born and bred in Maldon and have walked along the Blackwater for as long as I can remember.

“It’s a great place to go and contemplate and deal with any stress going on in your life.

“The landscape is meditative because it is so featureless.”

Tom said he felt “elated and humbled” when his photo was chosen.

He said: “I was also slightly frustrated because it was in April in the middle of lockdown so I couldn’t go out to celebrate.

“I’ve never thought my portraits were that great – landscapes are my thing.”

His photograph is part of a wider series called ‘I Am Always Here’ which Tom recently completed.

He now hopes to publish a book of 70 images dealing with the grief following the death of his father.

The new exhibition is part of the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Humanity awards, with 400 shortlisted finalists seeing their work lift off into space.

Halstead Gazette:

A 45-minute global premier of a film capturing the exhibition’s journey and its descent will be show today at 6pm at bjp.photo/space.

A spokesman said: “While the global pandemic forces museums and galleries to remain closed, the film brings empowering photography into people’s homes around the globe.

“Portrait of Humanity wants to get an insight into the lives of people from across the globe to capture laughter, courage, and sorrow, moments of reflection, journeys to work, first hellos, last goodbyes and everything that happens in between.

“The images also translate into binary code and are beamed through the universe at the speed of light.

“These are messages, which could continue on an infinite journey for the rest of time — or until another civilisation receives and decodes them.”