A Rhodes University student has been chosen as one of ten semi-finalists across the world to go on to win a high-profile student photography award, and will travel to London in April this year to compete in the final.
A Rhodes University student has been chosen as one of ten semi-finalists across the world to go on to win a high-profile student photography award, and will travel to London in April this year to compete in the final.
It was announced on Tuesday this week that Nina Grindlay was shortlisted for the 2012 Sony World Photography Awards Student Focus competition that attracted entries from over 200 tertiary institutions across six continents.
Student Focus has established itself as the world’s most high-profile student photography award and is open to universities worldwide that run a photography programme. This year’s student competition brief was based on the philosophy of the haiku poem.
Photographers were asked to take on a role similar to that of a haiku poet and create and submit one image that depicts a fleeting moment, or ‘the decisive moment’.
One burgeoning photographer from each of the ten shortlisted institutions have now been chosen to take part in the final competition that will announce the winner at the Sony World Photography Awards ceremony at London’s Park Lane Hilton Hotel on 26 April.
All shortlisted photographers will also take part in World Photo festival in London that offers students lectures, talks and masterclasses led by industry figureheads. Their images will also be exhibited as part of World Photo.
The brief for the next stage of the competition is ‘Your world in colour’: this stage of the competition will be completed in the resident country of the ten finalists using the latest Sony cameras.
Using this brief, the ten shortlisted photographers will be asked to create a series in colour that must evoke emotion through the choice of colour. They have a month prior to the awards in April to submit their images before they and their tutors fly to London to compete for the 2012 title.
The overall winner will be awarded approximately 45 000 Euros worth of Sony digital imaging equipment for their university. Panel judge Virginia Morrison commented that, “It can be the slightest angle shift, or a huge, startling difference in approach, but it is no easy feat to make a photograph that is distinctive in today's onslaught of images.
She said that the finalists she reviewed succeeded in making their fleeting moments stand out in a crowd with an array of interpretations of the theme. I was struck by the diversity of moments, so to speak, and the range of sensibilities.”
