The first IWPOY exhibition of 2008 was launched at the Quay Arts Centre, Thursday 27th March and runs through to Monday 28th April on the ‘cafe wall’. The fifty shortlisted entries from the 2007 competition are being exhibited from a total of 35 Island photographers who were lucky enough to be selected by the panel of judges. The IWPOY judges commented that it was a difficult task in deciding on the final 50 as there was once again such a high standard of entries.
The Isle of Wight Photographer of the Year competition, was the initial concept of Amanda Johnson ( Editor of Island Pulse and leading figure in the Isle of Wight Digital Imaging Group IWDIG) who said,
It’s great to see how much interest the Isle of Wight Photographer of The Year competition has generated since its inception in 2006. There are clearly a lot of talented people out there with a real passion for both photography and the Isle of Wight. I am grateful for the time and effort that all the entrants have put into their submissions. Whilst there are the obvious top three winners of the IWPOY, I feel all of the 50 chosen images including the 47 runners up, are representative of winners too!
One of the sponsors of the competition, the Isle of Wight County Press, are also keen to acknowledge photographers on the Island. Apart from supporting the IWPOY they are also calling for entries in an additional category for 2008 to raise awareness of the extraordinary beauty and variety of our Island entitled ‘Beautiful Island Scenes’ this new category will be going live at the beginning of April.
This is a great opportunity to get out into the countryside and capture something special about the rich diversity of the Island landscape. The IW County Press having seen some of the winners from previous years commented that the images are fantastic. They are looking for new pictures to use in their 2009 calendar and they thought that the IWPOY is a good opportunity to get images that don’t just look great, but are also specific to the Isle of Wight and taken by Island photographers.
Twelve images will be selected in September 2008 before the close of the main IWPOY competition (allowing time for printing the calendar) and will be judged by the IW County Press themselves. The normal IWPOY rules apply and entrants will be able to submit an extra 3 images in this new category as well as the 3 for the main IWPOY gallery. It’s a great opportunity for you to show off your best images with the chance of having them published, photographer’s will be awarded £50 for each image selected so good luck to everyone.
Over 40 photographers and guests attended the exhibition launch and commented on the quality of the images and new approach to the exhibition itself. A special thanks to both the Island Photo Centre and Essential for providing such high quality prints and a special thanks to Jo Hummel-Newell, Quay Arts Exhibition co-ordinator, for her hard work in setting the exhibition up.
We hope that many of you will visit the Quay Arts to view this exhibition and recognise the talented photographers we have here on the Island. Hopefully, it will inspire you to enter the Isle of Wight Photographer of the Year competition yourself, we look forward to seeing your images…
