Video of the judging process here.
This is the photo that I submitted for the first round of Practical Photography Magazines 2010 "Photographer of the Year" competition - the 'Landscape' category.....well, amazing as it still seems to me, it actually won!
The prize was a Nikon D300s and a 16-85vr lens with £500 of Jessops vouchers. The D300s has arrived and I've already exchanged it for a new Nikon D700. When the voucher arrives I'm going to put it toward a new FX wide angle Nikon 16-35vr lens to go with the new camera.
It's been an exciting couple of weeks since I heard that I'd won!
There's 6 rounds of the competition altogether (although I'm not allowed to enter any more of them). In the summer the competition judges will chose an overall winner from amongst the individual winners of the 6 different categories with the prize being tickets for two people on a 2 week cruise to N Africa + £2,000 in camera vouchers.
The original photo is here.
Like what you see here and are interested in photographic composition?.....the blog section of my website now has a complete set of 5 articles covering my personal approach to the subject: Ian Bramham Photography - Blog
For purchasing high quality archival prints of any of these photos you can send me an email by clicking here or by going to my website Ian Bramham - Fine Art Photography where prices are listed in the gallery sections under each individual photo.
@Bettina: Thanks Bettina!
@Francisco P. Font: Thanks Francisco!
@Jeff: Thanks Jeff!
@Johan Dierckx: Thanks Johan....yes, it would be amazing if I were to win the overall competition but I I'll have a 1 in 6 chance I suppose!
@Ian Smith: Thanks very much Ian!....you were one of the photographers at DPR who were the key in pushing me to the point where one of my photos can beat thousands of others to win a big competition like this. I still can't really believe I've got such a fantastic new camera out of it and it's brilliant to see the photo published.
One of my ambitions with the new camera is to make progress in portrait photography (at which I'm rubbish!) so the next photo I post here taken with the D700 will be just that.
@Anna.C: Thanks Anna!
@Ian Smith: My camera club are organising an evening studio portrait tutorial soon with lighting and also I won a half day tutorial with a pro photographer (newspaper) a while ago which I haven't taken up yet.... I want to use it to get tips on portrait and flash.
@Larry Lefever: Thanks Larry!
@Mangesh: Thanks!
@Scene by Sharon Photography: Thanks very much Sharon!
@BAbzy: Thanks very much!
@Pavan Kaul: Hi Pavan....thanks for that!
@JoeB: Thanks Joe.....well I agree that with landscape photography it certainly pays to keep returning to good locations as changing light and weather always bring something new.
@yz: Thanks yz!
@NADINE DERUYCK: Thanks Nadine!
@John Leech: Thanks John.....without all that help you've been giving me over the last 2 years I wouldn't be enjoying my photography so much and I would certainly never have won this competition.
@Ralph Jones: Thanks Ralph.....that Cow & Factory photo is one my own personal favourites too even though I'm not that happy with it compositionally.
@Chris: Thanks Chris!
@digitalCG: You know I never felt short changed by the D40 and the simplicity and light weight made it such a joy to use. The D700 feels incredibly complex in comparison and I think it's going to take me a while before I get as comfortable with it as the D40 (believe it or not, with the D40 I sometimes used to forget I was using it!). Having said all that I'm really thrilled with the D700 - the viewfinder in particular is an absolute joy as it is much bigger, brighter and clearer than the one on the D40
@Vahid: Thanks Vahid!
@Barbara: Thanks very much Barbara.....I feel so lucky to have won this competition and the new camera is very exciting!
@Hoshisato: Thanks very much Hoshisato!
NIKON D700
1/50 second
F/8.0
ISO 200
50 mm (35mm equiv.)