Press Releases
Welcome to the Travel Photographer of the Year Media Centre
All the latest press releases from the Travel Photographer of the Year awards are available to download below – click on 'More' to get the full story. For images to accompany a story, please visit our Media Gallery to view thumbnails, then request the shots from Karen in our Press Office.
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- March 29, 2012
ASPIRATIONAL REWARDS FOR INSPIRATIONAL IMAGES
The 2012 international Travel Photographer of the Year awards open for entries
- New Cutty Sark Award for overall winner – including the chance to blend their own whisky
- The very latest Fujifilm cameras including XPro 1, FinePix X100, FinePix X100 and X-S1
- Prize trips to Kenya, the Greek Islands and Morocco’s Essaouira Music Festival
- Paid commission for Condé Nast Traveller magazine
- HD video category
- Winning images exhibited at Royal Geographical Society
- Awards launched at London’s May Fair Hotel
With the introduction of the Cutty Sark Award for the overall winner, a category for HD video (for the first time ever), and prizes that include trips to Kenya, the Greek Islands and Morocco’s Essaouira Music Festival, plus the very latest Fujifilm cameras and a commission for Condé Nast Traveller magazine, there are more reasons than ever to enter the international Travel Photographer of the Year awards (TPOTY).
Open to amateur and professional photographers from all countries and of all ages, Travel Photographer of the Year is one of the world’s most prestigious photography competitions, with photographers from nearly 90 countries taking part last year alone. In 2011 TPOTY embarked on a five-year partnership with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) to host major annual exhibitions of the awards' stunning travel photography, supported by an ongoing programme of workshops and events. So, in addition to receiving highly desirable prizes, winners also have the immense privilege of seeing their images exhibited at the Society. The images are also published in the Travel Photographer of the Year ‘Journey’ books – all fantastic exposure for the winners.
Travel Photographer of the Year was founded in 2003, and is celebrating its 10th year in style. The 2012 awards were launched at London’s iconic May Fair Hotel, and 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 copyright communication and image tracking experts Digimarc have joined the line-up, while founding sponsor Fujifilm has returned to support TPOTY once more.
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 expensespaid 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 guidanceof Master Blender, Kirsteen Campbell, the Cutty Sark Award winner will blend their own whisky, selecting whiskies from a range of casks. They will also design their own label, and bottle up to 50 bottles of what will be a truly unique blended Scotch whisky to their own personal taste.
Portfolio categories and prizes
The portfolio categories challenge photographers to submit sets of four images that fit the category theme. The overall winner – the recipient of the Cutty Sark Award - is chosen from these categories.
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.
The winner of the Wild Planet portfolio category (wildlife, landscapes, nature and adventure) 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 an open category, for photographers to submit their personal take on travel. The photographer who most impresses the judges in this portfolio category will receive a magnificentFujifilm 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 winners of the Judges’ award for Best Single Image in each of the three portfolio categories will receive a 24” exhibition print of their winning entry from Genesis Digital, together with a print of one of the fascinating historic images from the archive of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).
Portfolio category runners-up can showcase their images or their iPad, with their choice of a beautiful, personalised 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. This service allows you to embed an imperceptible digital watermark into your images to communicate ownership and monitor usage across the Internet – something that is becoming increasingly critical for photographers.
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; a tremendous opportunity for any photographer.
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 will also receive a personalised Plastic Sandwich leather portfolio book or iFolio, plus a Digimarc for Images Professional Edition.
HD Video category - Travel Shorts
Always innovative, TPOTY has, for the first time, an HD video category, to reflect the increasing
usage of HD video in stills cameras. Entrants will be tasked with creating a 60-second film covering
any aspect of travel, and the winner will receive £1,000 from Cutty Sark Blended Scotch Whisky.
- December 9, 2011
- June 20, 2011
- May 10, 2011
- March 18, 2011
- February 25, 2011
- December 9, 2010
THE WORLD IN IMAGES
THE RESULTS OF THE 2011 TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR AWARDS ARE ANNOUNCED
An Elizabethan scholar and former professor at the University of California, Louis Montrose of the USA, has become the overall winner of the 2011 international Travel Photographer of the Year awards (TPOTY), with two striking, and very different, portfolios; one documenting life in a painted village in Burkina Faso and the other depicting the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Festival in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Photographers in nearly 90 countries submitted thousands of images for this year’s contest. Entrants from 33 countries were shortlisted and photographers from 20 countries scooped individual category awards. The winning images – which can now be viewed online in the Winners' Gallery on www.tpoty.com - will make their public debut at a major exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in London from June 21st to August 19th 2012. From a Beluga whale beneath sheets of ice, the mysterious beauty of sand dunes in America’s Death Valley, and abseiling down a thundering 225-metre waterfall, to vibrant Senegal streetlife, the snowy existence of the reindeer herders of Russia, some colourful and unusual views of London and a young Kenyan schoolgirl’s first view of a story book – via a Kindle - this year’s Travel< Photographer of the Year winning images give a fascinating view of life, culture and nature around the globe.
The winners will receive prizes from Adobe Systems, Inc., Cutty Sark blended Scotch Whisky, the Elephant Family charity, Explore, Genesis Digital, Lexar Media, the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), Oman Air and the Oman Ministry of Tourism, Photo Iconic, Plastic Sandwich, Tribes Travel, Tselana Travel, and Young Photographers Alliance.
The Young Travel Photographer of the Year award went to 17 year-old German photographer Arne Hansen for his portfolio depicting the physical impact of travel on nature. 17 year-old British photographer, Joel Biddle, took the honours in Young TPOTY 15-18, and also won the TPOTY/Young Photographers Alliance Emerging Talent Award, for his intriguing abstract images on the category theme of ‘green’. 14 year old Seamus Crowley (USA) won Young TPOTY 14 and Under, with shots of the Irish landscape, with 10 year old Swiss photographer Lisa Gehrig finishing as runner-up, and 17 year old Tom Spence (UK) runner-up in the 15-18 category.
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.
TRAVEL, SHOOT, WIN - AMAZING PRIZES FOR TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHERS IN TPOTY 2011
The 2011 international Travel Photographer of the Year awards (TPOTY) offer fantastic rewards for successful entrants. Prizes include trips to Marrakech, Oman, Botswana and Cambodia, cash bursaries, photographic equipment and tuition - and a paid photographic commission in England and Scotland; the first such prize in the awards’ history.
All winning photographers will also see their prizewinning shots published in the next TPOTY book, Journey Four, and displayed at a major TPOTY exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in London during the Olympic games. And for the Overall Winner there’s a further, unique opportunity within that exhibition. With entries open until October 9th, and the awards open to photographers of all levels and all ages and from all countries, there’s plenty of time to pick up your camera and get shooting…
The Overall Winner of the awards – the 2011 Travel Photographer of the Year - will be given a unique personal showcase within the TPOTY exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in the summer of 2012. The showcase will contain not just their eight TPOTY-winning images but also a selection of their other, non-TPOTY work. This will give them an outstanding opportunity to demonstrate their talents to the large numbers of visitors expected to attend the exhibition in London’s cultural quarter at a time when the Olympic Games will make the city a focus for millions of visitors from around the world. In addition they’ll receive a £1,000 TPOTY cash bursary, plus Adobe Creative Suite Design Premium 5.5 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 software, a Plastic Sandwich personalised leather iPad portfolio case, complete with iPad2, and a Lexar Professional 600x 32GB CompactFlash memory card + Lexar Professional Dual-Slot card reader.
The winner of the Spirit of Adventure portfolio category will be awarded an exclusive commission from Cutty Sark Blended Scotch Whisky to shoot a number of photographs in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Cutty Sark will use up to 20 of the commissioned images for internal brand education and the winning photographer will be paid a fee of £4,000, with accommodation and transport for the trip being organised and paid for separately by Cutty Sark. The commissioned images will be used under license only and will be credited to the winning photographer, who will retain the copyright.
2011 TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR AWARDS NOW OPEN FOR ENTRIES
It's time to pick up your camera and pack your travel bag - the 2011 international Travel. Photographer of the Year awards (TPOTY) are open for entry and photographers worldwide are invited to take part.
Last year's TPOTY awards drew entries from some 75 countries, the widest spread in the competition's history. 2011 looks set to be TPOTY's strongest year yet, with a range of new categories, an exciting new sponsor line-up and a new 'home' in London at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).
The winners of the 2011 TPOTY awards will receive some fantastic rewards. The prize package will be announced in June and, in addition, the winners will see their work displayed at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in a major exhibition next summer in the lead-up to the 2012 London Olympics; a fantastic opportunity for any photographer. The 2011 winning images will also be showcased in the TPOTY book, Journey Four.
A FEAST FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS AND TRAVEL LOVERS
Travel and photography workshops, lectures and advice sessions at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
With the arrival of the Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) from May 6th to June 10th, London gains a fabulous new free-to-view photography exhibit. And in September and October there's more… three days of informative and entertaining lectures and workshops, where travel and photography lovers can learn from renowned experts and immerse themselves in images, geography, history, and photographic technique. Priced at just £55 per day, these promise to be not-to-be-missed experiences for travel lovers and photography fans, and represent fantastic value for money too. More....
TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY (WITH IBG)
A new journey begins with major London exhibition
Travel Photographer of the Year and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) are delighted to announce a new five-year partnership that will see the Society host major annual exhibitions of the awards' stunning travel photography supported by an ongoing programme of workshops and events, starting this summer. More....
'ATMOSPHERIC' IMAGES DOMINATE TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR AS CANADIAN OPTOMETRIST TAKES THE 2010 TITLE
Canadian humanitarian documentary photographer and optometrist Dr. Larry Louie has taken top honours in the 2010 international Travel Photographer of the Year awards (TPOTY), with stunning, highly atmospheric portfolios of black and white images of Mali and China. Photographers in over 70 countries submitted thousands of images for this year?s contest. Entrants from 34 countries were shortlisted and photographers from 18 countries scooped individual category awards.
