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| "Judge Glyn" with all the winners, L-R Sion, Polly, Esme,Tomos, Maddy, Sophie & Iori |
I was involved from the start both in terms of subject categories and also fair terms and conditions for the competition.
There has been a plethora of copyright grabbing competitions in the last few years where competitions are set up purely to get access to numerous free pictures for commercial use whilst offering pitiful prizes to the minimum number of entrants in return for stealing their intellectual property. I would not act as judge where any such grabs exist, so helped Stevie establish fair rules from the outset, by directing her to the Professional Imaging website which offers suggested structures for decent competitions. They even have a 'Rights On, Rights Off' list to highlight which organisations deal ethically with entrants, and which abuse copyright for greed. Stevie was brilliant in wanting to avoid such copyright grabbing schemes and ensured the fair terms were met.
We received a very high number of entries within the age and subject categories and Stevie visited my gallery to ensure each digital entry was judged in the right category, a very particular and mind focussing task ! I am delighted to have had her help I can tell you ! There were really excellent observations from these young people, and although lack of decent equipment was letting many of them down, I endeavoured to judge on aesthetic and contextual merit rather than just technical prowess. We saw many fine attempts at macro photography of bugs on flowers, grasses and plants, but also owls, seagulls and even sheep, but I was as interested in those who were highlighting environment in different ways, from rubbish and pollution to renewable energy and even landscapes (though sadly the latter fell out of the remit of the wildlife / nature categories). Although the winners really had produced the best of the categories, there were some other excellent entries which simply couldn't win the one off first prize, so we awarded Highly Commended and Honourable Mentions to several others.
The winners are as follows:
Under 7
Maddy O' Sullivan "A Snowy Day in Parc Menai"
7-12
Sophie Pipe "Coeden Rhew" (Frozen Wood)
13-18
Iori Thorpe "Honey Bee"
Group Entry
Winners: Ysgol Tregarth School
Esme Crowe "Gwely" (Bed)
Polly Jones "A Tree"
Sion Jones "Harddwch" (Beauty)
Tomos Walker "Gaeaf" (Winter)
Highly Commended
7-12
Teifyn Livingston "Flutterby"
7-12
Ellie Owen "Ffermydd Gwynt" (Wind Farm)
13-18
Olivia Carmichael "Lobster Pots"
A packed reception was held at the Gwynedd Museum and Art Gallery in Bangor this morning where kids and their families all turned out in numbers to see their work displayed and receive their prizes. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to actually present the prizes where I wanted to talk about my reasons for their selection but delivered a general chat about the entries, the themes and the fun of choosing the winners.
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| Chatting to the entrants as a whole about the process & judging |
Congratulations to all those worthy winners, and thanks to all the other great kids who submitted good entries, but also to Stevie for organising the whole event and to the museum and gallery staff for providing the exhibition venue.
All words are strictly copyright © Glyn Davies 2011
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