Photo Competition 2013, judging and the results.

We would like to thank everyone who participated in our Photo competition and to say what a difficult task it was to decide on a winning photo. To help evaluate the pictures in a structured and objective manner we developed a scoring system which is explained below.
 

The winning Photo taken by Simon Lancaster in the Rockies British Colombia

But first the winning photo which was taken by Simon Lancaster in the Rockies (British Colombia) Canada whilst on a family holiday in September 2012. According to Simon the photo shows the incredible waters of Lake Moraine cradled by just as incredible peaks, and “the image embrace’s the spirit of freedom found both within an environment and within one’s self when out walking in such areas of natural beauty.” Congratulations Simon.

The other photos shown here were all highly commended and all the photo entries can be seen on flickr clicking here

Highly commended; Photo taken By Alejandro Collia in the Sierra de Vizcarres en Asturias

The judging process

In the information for the competition we asked for beautiful, evocative and uplifting photographs associated with experiences in the outdoors, so for each of those characteristics; beautiful, evocative and uplifting we awarded 0 to 3 points to each photo and then the option of awarding an additional point for creativity and technical merit. This gave the possibility of a maximum of 11 points for each photo. We gave the option of awarding only one point for technical merit as we didn’t want the competition to be too biased in favour of the “professional” photographers.

Highly commended; Photo taken by Julie Andrews "Autumn Patchwork" Taken on the road between Portilla de Reina and Posada de Valdeon in Northern Spain

The five judges to whom I am very grateful for their time and help were;

Juan Iglesias from www.photowild.es 

Lidia Fanjul from www.sense-experience.com  

Gavin Owens from www.whereisasturias.com  

John Shackleton from www.wildasturias.com

Nigel Burch from www.posadadelvalle.com

To me what was most surprising was the difference in the number of points awarded to some of the photos by the different judges which just goes to show beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

Highly commended, Photo taken by Julie Tesse; "The Turquoise Lake" Patagonia Chile

We have certainly enjoyed running the competition and have learnt a lot and are already planning for the 2014 competition.