Landscape Photographer of the Year

I've been sworn to secrecy until now, but now that the feature in yesterday's Sunday Times is out, I can tell you - I've been commended for a picture in this year's Landscape Photographer of the Year competition. Being commended means I don't get any prize money. I do get my picture in Landscape Photographer of the Year - Collection 3, but no money from the sales of that book. The honour of being featured is supposed to be reward enough. There's also to be an exhibition of the pictures in London's National Theatre from 5 December this year to 24 January.

My entry to the competition:


The competition mainly revolves around English National Parks - the park authorities are the main sponsors, and there are special prizes for best pictures taken in each of them. What is interesting therefore is how many of the pictures chosen represent Highland landscapes - the obvious place to look, perhaps, for a landscape photography prize, but I liked very much some of the less obvious and subtle entries. Mine was taken above the Cairnwell near Braemar, and features Billy battling against spindrift on a winter's day. It's not the best quality of picture - taken on 35mm film and scanned a while ago for my website, it could have been scanned better. Compare it in sharpness and detail to the technical quality of the winning picture:

The winning entry:


I don't like obviously faked landscapes, and confess I presumed a heavily photoshopped entry might win; but the processing in this enhances, rather than detracts from, the picture. I like it very much, and it encourages me that such a normal looking, albeit spectacular (and well composed - look how the rays of sun hit the Old Man), landscape won the competition. Perhaps next year??

Billy - if you'd entered the pic of me and Dave on Beinn Mhic Mhonaidh, you might have won something!