Travel Photographer of the Year was founded in 2003 by professional photographer Chris Coe and his wife and business partner Karen, who wanted to show that travel photography is much, much more than holiday snaps and pretty postcards. In the eleven years since TPOTY was founded, the awards have gone from strength to strength and are now highly regarded as a truly premier travel photography award. Last year over 48,000 visitors attended the exhibition at The Royal Geographical Society, a figure which has been grown from interest building year-on-year for these fascinating international travel awards.
Genesis have a long history of working with Travel Photographer of the Year and are delighted to continue to support the awards again for this year’s exhibition.
The Winners of the 2014 international Travel Photographer of the Year awards have been revealed:
British photographer Philip Lee Harvey took the overall prize – and title of ‘Travel Photographer of the Year 2014’ – for elegant portfolios depicting the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia and the Himba of Namibia.
The title of ‘Young Travel Photographer of the Year 2014’ went to 17 year-old Samuel Fisch of the USA, who is the first person to win this award twice, having won the award for the first time back in 2012. ‘Young TPOTY 15-18’ was won by 18 year-old Georgia Mulholland of Australia with vivid shots of the Greek islands, while Michael Theodric of Indonesia (age 12) won the 14 and under category with an atmospheric black & white portfolio of Java – the world’s most populous island.
Italian amateur photographer Massimiliano Fabrizi was voted winner of the ‘New Talent’ category for his subtle and understated images of Cuba. Rufus Blackwell’s quirky, short timelapse film of Kumhb Mela (the largest gathering of people on Planet Earth) was a vivid and colourful contrast to Fabrizi’s portfolio and secured the British photographer first prize in the ‘HD Video category’.
Malaysian oral implantologist, Nick Ng Yeow Kee, was awarded the overall winner of the ‘Tribes’ portfolio category with his intimate black & white portraits of elderly people in China, while Dutch photographer Marsel van Oosten took top honours in the ‘Earth, Air, Fire, Water’ category, with his eerie images of dead camelthorn trees in the fog in Namibia. And the ‘Spirit of Adventure’ category was won by Poland’s Piotr Trybalski with a portfolio depicting an epic cycle trip along the Norwegian coast.
Johnny Haglund of Norway scored not one, but two first places in the single image categories – winning Monochromal with a wonderfully sympathetic portrait of an elderly woman in Colombia, and ‘One Moment’ with a striking image of Les Sapeurs’ in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Joshua Holko was awarded winner in the ‘Wild & Vibrant’ category for a suitably wild and vibrant image of the moment a polar bear looked up from consuming a recent seal kill, its bloodied face and the seal carcass standing out vividly against the white fur and snow.
The images above, by Timothy Allen (UK), a former overall winner of the awards, took the Genesis-supported judges’ Best Single Image award in the Tribes and Spirit of Adventure portfolio categories, while Jakub Rybicki (Poland) received the same award in Earth, Air, Fire, Water.
The winning images and short films from this year’s awards will be displayed in an exhibition at London’s Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) from July 24th– September 5th 2015.