Travel News
Good news to all travel photographers! TPOTY 2012 is now officially open for entries! Be you shutterbugs for hobby or earning a living, this is your great opportunity to take part in this year 2012 Travel Photographer Of The Year contest to expose yourself to the world! Past winners from each year’s contest had always received overwhelming attentions from major medias around the world and being featured in most highly acclaimed photography magazines.
This year TPOTY is going to be more attractive as rewards and sponsorships are among the best ever since its introduction in the year 2003. Among the prizes include:
- New Cutty Sark Award for overall winner, with £5,000 prizes and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
- The very latest Fujifilm cameras: XPro 1, FinePix X100, FinePix X10, the X-S1 bridge camera and XP150 weatherproof camera
- Prize trips – 5-star luxury in Greece, a Kenyan safari, and Morocco’s Essaouira Music Festival
- Paid commission for Condé Nast Traveller magazine
- Plastic Sandwich leather portfolio cases and iFolios
- New HD video category with £1,000 prizes
- Winning images exhibited at Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
The dateline for last entry submission is on 17th September 2012. So there are still another 5 months for you to go traveling and shoot some good travel photos!
Below is the email I received the other day, and being enclosed here for you guys to read through about TPOTY 2012:
The 2012 Travel Photographer of the Year awards are now open for entry. Whether you’re an amateur or professional photographer, young or old and wherever you live in the world, you are eligible to enter TPOTY 2012. We have some challenging new categories and some fantastic rewards.
Cutty Sark Blended Scotch Whisky, Plastic Sandwich, Photo Iconic, Young Photographers Alliance, Genesis Digital and the travel specialists Explore, Tribes Travel, and Tselana Travel are all sponsoring the awards again this year. Condé Nast Traveller magazine, Radisson Blu Edwardian, London, The May Fair Hotel and Digimarc have joined the line-up, while founding sponsor Fujifilm has returned to support TPOTY once more. We would like to thank all our sponsors, without whom the awards could not exist, and we would like to thank the May Fair Hotel for hosting a wonderful launch event for the awards.
The Cutty Sark Award
This year’s overall winner – the Travel Photographer of the Year 2012 – will be the first-ever recipient of the Cutty Sark Award, presented by Cutty Sark Blended Scotch Whisky. This very special prize consists of two elements: firstly, the winner will receive £5,000 – £2,500 as cash, plus an expenses-paid international photography commission to shoot images for Cutty Sark with a further £2,500 commission fee. And secondly, a unique, ‘money-can’t-buy’, opportunity! With the guidance of Master Blender, Kirsteen Campbell, the Cutty Sark Award winner will blend their own whisky. They will also design their own label, and bottle up to 50 bottles of what will be a truly unique blended Scotch whisky.Three portfolio categories:
Submit a portfolios of four images that meet the category theme. To be eligible for the title of Travel Photographer of the Year – and a chance to win The Cutty Sark Award – you need to enter two different portfolio categorires.
- People Watching: Luxury travel experts Tselana Travel will take the winner of the People Watching portfolio category to the Greek Islands, where they and a guest will stay in the stunning, award-winning 5-star Grace Mykonos and Grace Santorini boutique hotels.
- Wild Planet: (wildlife, landscapes, nature and adventure) The winner will take a nine-day, tailor-made tour of Kenya with adventure travel specialists Explore. Their trip will include visits to two of the country’s most famous game parks, the Masai Mara and Amboseli.
- Journeys: is our first-ever open category, for photographers to submit their personal take on travel. The winner will receive a magnificent Fujifilm XPro 1 kit. Complete with revolutionary XPro 1 body, camera case and 18mm, 35mm and 60mm lenses, this is the perfect tool for travel, street and documentary photography.
The Judges’ Best Single Image winner in each of the portfolio categories wins 24” exhibition print from Genesis Digital plus an archive print from the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). And the runner-up in each portfolio category wins a leather portfolio case or iFolio (iPad case) from Plastic Sandwich. In addition, they’ll be able to track and monitor their images online with a Digimarc for Images Professional Edition.
Condé Nast Traveller Award
To mark Condé Nast Traveller magazine’s 15th anniversary, the magazine is inviting photographers to submit a portfolio of six photographs illustrating the theme ‘Celebration’. The winner will receive a paid commission to go on assignment with the magazine.New Talent – Another World
This category is for photographic students and amateur or semi-professional photographers who want to turn pro. The winner will experience the vibrant Gnaoua and World Music Festival in Essaouira, Morocco, with sustainable travel specialists Tribes Travel. And they’ll be able to photograph it on their new Fujifilm FinePix X100, which, inspired by the beauty and form of classic cameras from the past, combines all the latest technical digital innovations in a beautiful, traditional chassis. They also receive a personalised Plastic Sandwich leather portfolio book or iFolio, plus a Digimarc for Images Professional Edition.HD Video category – Travel Shorts
Our first-ever HD video category! Create a 60-second film covering any aspect of travel, and you could receive £1,000 from Cutty Sark Blended Scotch Whisky.Two single image categories:
The theme of the One Shot category this year is Water. The winner will receive a Fujifilm X10, a highly advanced compact camera with a nostalgic, analogue-camera look and cutting-edge technology.And Fujifilm is also supporting First Shot – Big City, the beginners’ category, with a prize of a FinePix XP150 – the camera that redefines the new standard for all-weather digital compacts – plus the winner also receives a place on a Photo Iconic photography course.
Young Travel Photographer of the Year
The theme of this year’s Young Travel Photographer of the Year award is Places & Faces. The winners of the two age groups (14 and under, 15-18) each receive a FinePix XP150. Fujifilm’s toughest FinePix to date can survive a drop from up to 2m and is waterproof up to 10m, so the young winners can really let their creativity run wild! And the overall young winner – the Young Travel Photographer of the Year 2012 – receives a Fujifilm X-S1 premium bridge camera. With 26 x optical zoom, and super macro mode to 1cm, this is a fantastic piece of kit that will really help the young winner develop their skills.Young TPOTY entrants will also compete with New Talent entrants aged 25 or under for the Young Photographers Alliance Emerging Talent award, with a prize of a place on the YPA mentoring scheme, or a YPA portfolio review.
The judges
TPOTY is hugely respected for the calibre of its judging panels, and the 2012 judges will include photographers Eamonn McCabe, Jason Hawkes, Ami Vitale, Steve Bloom, Nick Meers and Chris Weston, and the editors of Hotshoe International, FOTOmagazin (Germany), Outdoor Photography, and the photography director of Condé Nast Traveller.The exhibition
The winning images and short film from the 2012 awards will be exhibited at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in 2013. Winning images from the 2011 awards can be seen at the Society this summer, in a major exhibition running from June 22nd to August 19th – giving visitors to London over the Olympic period a chance to take some time out from all the sporting action and enjoy a glorious selection of world-class travel images. This exhibition will include two special showcases.And in October we return to the Royal Geographical Society for TPOTY Live!, our Festival of Photography.
How to enter
Entries for the 2012 awards are now open. Images can be submitted as prints or uploaded online, and HD video entries submitted on DVD by post. Entries close on September 17th. Entry fees start at £10 and Young TPOTY is free to enter. Full details of how to enter can be found on www.tpoty.com.
Hope I would have some good photos captured on my upcoming trip to Japan end of this month. Do you have any travel photography plan in mind? Share with me in the comment box below… 
– Travel Feeder, your ultimate guide to travel photography
Subscribe to Travel Feeder's RSS Feed For FREE Updated Stories!
This travel photo was shot a few months ago at Passeig de Gracia, Barcelona. It was a gorgeous shopping street with beautiful building design and remarkable image as an upmarket shopping alley. The tourist attraction, Casa Batlló, a creation of Antoni Gaudi, is also here in Passeig de Gracia.
Unfortunately, the view has changed. Violent outbreaks stroke the street a few days ago, 100 days after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party took office. The strike happened in the 800,000 people protest after the new government vowed to cut Spain’s 23pc unemployment rate and lower its deficit, which is expected to contain deep austerity measures and possibly tax increases as the conservative government seeks savings of €40bn (£33bn).
The most violent episodes broke out in Barcelona, where masked protesters rampaged down Gracia, the Catalan capital’s most upmarket shopping district, setting fire to rubbish and hurling missiles at designer store fronts, which had been boarded up ahead of the strike. A bonfire was lit outside Barcelona’s stock exchange. A branch of the coffee chain Starbucks was also set on fire. 104 people were injured and 176 arrested in the incidence.
God blessed as the situation seemed back to normal after a few days. We just hope that Passeig de Gracia would not be affected by any strike as it is one of the ‘must-visit’ destination in Barcelona. While the new government is striving to save Spain economy from trailing what had happened in Greece and Italy, travelers visiting Barcelona should be cautious to any social issues that might happen again in the city in near future. Having said that, Barcelona is still one of my favourite city to holiday in Europe… – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel guide to Europe
Subscribe to Travel Feeder's RSS Feed For FREE Updated Stories!
Another sad sad news not long after its announcement of ceasing flights to Europe after March, AirAsia X again announced on Monday that all flights to and from Christchurch, New Zealand will also be chopped after June 2012! WTH is going on with AirAsia X? A true disappointment to budget and young travelers, the decision [...]
Subscribe to Travel Feeder's RSS Feed For FREE Updated Stories!
Yes. You read it right. I’ve just got my visa from the local Japan embassy to visit Japan in this coming May. Hooray! I’ve never thought of visiting Japan all this while. Japan is always one of the most expensive countries to travel to for holidays. Since I’m an avid traveler but with limited budget, [...]
A good news to those who wish to book their flights to travel in this year’s Christmas holiday or year 2013 New Year vacations, Airasia has released their year end booking starting from today the 15th February until 19th February this coming Sunday! Flights included in this booking offer are for all Airasia and Airasia [...]
