Yesterday saw the Award presentation evening for this year’s IWPOY held at the Quay Arts Centre, Newport to a packed house. Most of the shortlisted photographers attended and eagerly awaited the announcement of this year’s top three winning entries.

After a brief introduction thanks were given to the judges. Chris Barton and Steve Gascoigne gave a short talk on how difficult their task had been due to the quality of the entries this year.  The sponsors were thanked and then the first award of the evening was the presentation of the Julia Margaret Cameron trophy. Provided by Dimbola Lodge, supported by Brian Hinton MBE their chairman, this award is given to a person, not necessarily for their photographic talents, but to someone who promotes photography in whatever form on the Island.

This year’s holder of the trophy: started photography at the age of 14; was a member and chairman of Sandown & Shanklin District Camera Club; to this day is the club’s president; in 2000 brought together the major camera clubs on the Island for a joint exhibiton at the Quay Arts Centre; runs courses in pinhole photography; supports world pinhole day every year in April; still works with film and traditional darkroom along with a little digital photography and supports and helps other Island photographers where he can.

The JMC trophy  was presented  by Amanda Johnson, who held the trophy for the previous year, to Eric Mitchell. Congratulations to Eric for an award that in our opinion is well deserved. Eric was so pleased and shocked that the only comment he was able to make was “I’m staggered!”, probably the shortest acceptance speech of all time but well done Eric.

After a short break Alan Marriott, editor of the Isle of Wight County press was invited to present the certificates to the photographers who had made the shortlist. Finally it was time to announce the top three winners and Chris Barton was asked to present the prizes sponsored by Nikon in association with IPC whilst Alan Marriott agreed to present the certificates along with the canvasses of the winning photographs.

Third place: Mist over Brading - Kelly Fraczynski
Second place: Shanklin Sunrise - Neil Hunt (2007 IWPOY winner)
First place: Spiral into Darkness - Tina Nicholls

All in all this was a great evening for Island photographers and photography. New contacts and friends were made, skills and talents were recognised and most left in anticipation of the new theme being announced for the 2009 competition.

Congratulations to the top three but congratulations are also due to all who took part, we are excited about seeing your new photographs for IWPOY 2009 so watch this space for the new competition details coming soon…

It is with great pleasure that we are now able to announce the judges for the IWPOY 2008 and to thank them in advance for the difficult task that they have already started. With such diversity and  quality of images this year their task is not an enviable one however, their photographic skills and backgrounds have equipped them well for this challenge.

Steve Gascoigne
Steve was born in Coventry in 1973. After achieving ‘A’ Levels in Art and Photography, Steve started his career as a photojournalist, before gaining the opportunity to become a photographic hand printer for a leading company in the field. Here he spent 10 years learning the skills and artistry involved in crafting photographic prints for some of the country’s top photographers.

Steve started Available Light Photography after moving to the Isle of Wight in October 2000. Struck by the allure and variety of the Island’s landscape, Steve decided to use his years of photographic experience to capture this beauty. His grounding in traditional photographic techniques helped immensely when Steve took the plunge and ‘went digital’ in 2003. No longer constrained to the darkroom, Steve now has more time to concentrate on taking the unique images he sells, and printing them using the latest archival inks and papers that outlast traditional photographic media.

As Ansel Adams famously said – “The negative can be seen as the score sheet, the print is the performance” and this holds true for digital as well as film. Each image has been crafted to be as close to the scene that was originally perceived, using the traditional darkroom techniques of dodging, burning and masking. This ensures that the beauty of the landscape is uncompromised, and the print can try and do justice to the scene it depicts.  All of Steve’s work can be viewed online on his website, www.availablelight.cc

Chris Barton
Chris was born on the Island way back in the sixties and showed an early interest in photography, setting up a school darkroom and becoming the official unofficial photographer of 1024 squadron air cadets (of which he was a member).

After a school career, in which Chris mostly stayed out of trouble, he spent some time on the mainland learning about photography at college.

Returning to the Island he worked for a photographer and then moved into colour and black & white processing before going into retail. Chris has spent some time as a member of several camera clubs over the years and carried out photographic judging work in the 80’s and 90’s.

Chris has worked for the Island Photo Centre for 18 years, seeing the company evolve to provide different services such as photo restoration, image recall, in-store large format printing, in-house teaching and product photography.

Ben Wood
Based at his studio in Bembridge on The Isle of Wight, where he runs his company Island Images, Ben is best known for his signature black and white marine photography and his highly successful landscape images from his book The Island. However, since re-locating to the island from London ten years ago Ben has diversified into motor-racing, equine and shooting photography.

His most recent exhibition Equus showed in London and Paris and featured 40 prints from the polo fields of Apremont and the race tracks of Chantilly and Longchamps. The shell series started as a private commission and has since developed into Ben’s most current project. The shells and coral are sourced from all over the world and then photographed using very soft light in his studio. In the printing stage the giclee paper is given extra texture by applying a glaze over the image.

Ben also takes on commercial commissions for a wide range of advertising, architectural and design clients and is represented in London by Getty Images and Corbis.

You can view Ben’s work at www.islandimages.org.uk

Please take a little time to view the competition judge’s websites - there are some great images in their galleries and as photographers we can all gain some benefit from their skills and professionalism.

The Isle of Wight Photographer of the Year  ‘Lifestyles’ exhibition featuring 50 photographic prints from those photographers lucky enough to be selected, by the panel of judges in IWPOY 2007, opens in the Olympus Gallery at Dimbola Lodge, on Friday October 24th 2008.

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This is the last day for Island Photographers to register and submit images for the Isle of Wight Photographer of the Year Award 2008.  With over 250 images entered IWPOY organisers extended the original deadline until 9pm today 18th October 2008.

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