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
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If you’re looking for holidays in Spain or other sunny destinations there are a wealth of great value offers available from the likes of onthebeach.co.uk. If you’re taking a holiday somewhere sunny this year however remember to take special care of your skin. Travelling Brits and people from other cold climates can often be the most reckless, as they see their ten day vacation as their one chance to get a tan. If this is you, you should at least be fully aware of the risks associated with exposing your body to the sun’s rays.
As the body’s protective cover, the skin is incredibly important. It is made up of three layers – epidermis, dermis and fat. The top layer, the epidermis, is the result of a continual process of living cells being pushed to the surface. Once skin cells reach the epidermis level, they produce keratin (which protects us from extreme temperatures). They also become harder, drier, and begin to produce melanin – the pigment which protects – to some extent – our bodies from burning on exposure to the sun. It is the over-production of melanin which appears as a tan.
The reason we need this protection is to allow us time to produce vitamin D – something our bodies do on exposure to the sun. Even in grey countries like Scotland, 20 minutes outside every day is more than enough to maintain healthy levels of vitamin D. Naturally, the closer to the equator you get the less time you need.
It’s vital to keep in mind that a ‘suntan’ is a sun-damaged epidermis. Skin exposed to too many of the sun’s UV rays can develop freckles and rashes. In the short term, this means the reddening and pain associated with sunburn. This can go as far as second-degree burns.
And in the long term, your risk of skin cancer is increased with repeated exposure to the sun. UV radiation exposure ages the skin, accelerating the drying, wrinkling dullness associated with getting older. It also increases changes in the skin pigment known as ‘age spots’.
The best advice for avoiding premature aging of the skin, and decreasing your risk of skin cancer, is to stay out of the sun as much as possible. Luckily, for most Britons, this isn’t a problem. The biggest risk is the annual vacation in the sun, so make sure you take plenty of sunscreen, and don’t lie in the sun for more than an hour without replenishing your covering. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel guide to Europe
Image by: graur razvan ionut FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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