Travel: Winning moments
Composition, light, mood - what makes a great picture? Simon Calder finds out
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Travel photography can cause nearly as many heated arguments as Middle East peace negotiations - or at least when the judges of the The Independent/Wanderlust magazine/Nikon Travel Photograph of the Year Competition are picking the winners. We attracted more entries from amateur photographers than ever before, many of them of outstanding.
The competition embraced four categories: the Natural World, Action, Face-to-Face and Black & White. Whittling down the thousands of images to 10 finalists in each category was a week's work for Geoffrey Roy, Wanderlust's professional photographer. We then convened in Windsor for the day to judge the eventual winners.
In the Natural World category, we felt that Tony Ord's feeling for snow, light and composition caught this family of emperor penguins perfectly - and shows the photographic rewards you can expect if you travel to the Larsen Ice Shelf of Antarctica in November.
Shirley Bell's Action shot of buffalo-racing on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia (shown on the cover of this week's Time Off) tells more in an instant than moving pictures ever could. The winner of the Black & White category, Giles Angel, made the most of a moment in the souk in Marrakesh: "For a brief moment a gap appeared, and a boy came cycling towards me."
The visages beaming from Michael Ford's image of the Trans-Aral train in Uzbekistan won him both the Face-to-Face category and the overall prize. "My fellow travellers had just done a bit of DIY air-conditioning by removing the window. As they leaned out, I clicked."
At the awards ceremony at Destinations '98 in Olympia, London, yesterday, the three category winners each received a Nikon F50 with 35-80mm lens, plus a Billingham Photo Hadley bag.
Mr Ford was presented by Nikon with an F70 SLR with 24-120mm AF-D lens, worth at least pounds 1,000, while Bellingham gave him a 335 camera bag and Ventile photo vest (total value pounds 300 plus). Plus one prize money can't buy: a photographic commission from The Independent.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments