Photography News 09

18

Competitions

Aview of Britain Renowned landscape photographer Charlie Waite set up the Take a view – Landscape Photographer of the Year Award to celebrate Britain’s best vistas. We quiz Charlie to discover what it is that makes it such a success INTERVIEW

young people. The images that are entered must be of the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. We live in such a fantastic country and it is a place where I am proud to live. Many people feel exactly the same way and I hope that the competition helps to spread the word about the variety of intriguing landscapes that exist and encourages people to explore and discover. How much involvement do you have with the Landscape Photographer of the Year Award? It is a project I am very involved with. My creative director, Diana Leppard, has been with me since day one and we worked together on setting up the competition and she continues to manage the overall structure and reminds me where I need to

this is enhanced when an audience approves – when something of the emotion you felt when creating the image is shared by others. I wanted the competition to provide an ongoing showcase, enabling talented landscape photographers to have their work seen and enjoyed by people across the UK and beyond. What’s the competition’s background? Although the idea for the competition had been in my mind for some years, the planning started in 2006, with the first winner, Jon Gibbs, being announced in 2007. One of the key things about the competition is that it is aimed at everyone – amateurs, enthusiasts and professionals can all enter. We also have separate classes for adults and

ABOVE LEFT Weightlessness, South Bank, London by Tatiana Zigar, Commended, 2012 ABOVE RIGHT Buckholt Wood, Cranham, Gloucestershire by Robert Wolstenholme, Highly Commended, 2013

Interview by Megan Croft

You are the mastermind of the competition; what was the inspiration behind it? I have become known as being rather evangelistic when it comes to landscape photography. Some say that the camera divorces us from our surroundings by distancing us from the immediate experience but I feel that the whole process, from finding the location and pre-visualising the result you wish to achieve through to the final image, can be a very enriching and rewarding one and is something that I have always wanted to share with as many people as possible. Although it is possible to get great personal satisfaction from photography, you can argue that

Photography News | Issue 9

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