Box of tricks by young superheroes wins award
ALAUNCESTON-BASED photographer beat fellow professionals from around the world to be named Children’s Photographer of the Year 2021 at the annual Societies of Photographers Awards in London.
The entry by Jessica Harrison-Chu, of Maddielili Photography, of children playing in a montage of life-size boxes, was described by the judges as full of energy and fun and highly unusual for the category.
Jessica said: “I wanted to find a way to photograph families whilst the strict social distancing and shielding measures were in place during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I asked my husband to build a life-size box so I could photograph family members at different times and then stitch these together in a fun and dynamic way.
“Schools made use of this approach to group shots to create unique class images highlighting the separation but also camaraderie of children living through a really tough time.
“The box image remains a popular choice for photo shoots as kids really come alive and love trying different poses and climbing the walls.”
The Societies of Photographers is a group of international organisations incorporating the interests of all aspects of photography and is the world’s largest association for photographers. Throughout 2021, 6,636 entries were submitted to its competition, across 29 categories.
Jessica added: “I wanted the final image to be fun, full of colour and show the imagination of the kids whilst playing at being superheroes.”
The judges said: “It is nice to see something high key in this category, it’s not something we often see. The composite has been done really well, and there’s so much energy and fun in this image, it drew our attention straight away.”
Colin Jones, The Societies of Photographers’ CEO, added: “The Photographer of the Year Awards represent some of the finest images entered into the competition and have competed against some of the world’s best photographers. Congratulations to all our winners.”
Other winners included an aerial drone shot of a village submerged in a toxic lake, which won the Environmental Awareness category, and a close-up of a damselfly taken in the wild by Pedro Ajuriaguerra, chosen as runner-up in the category.
Self-taught Pedro, 47, from Bilbao in Spain, said: “This close-up portrait of a Violet Dropwing Damselfly was taken in a gloomy location, covered by fog most of the day.
“It is an area of riverside vegetation with high-density water-rich oxygen. The damselfly was somewhat dormant and I was able to take pictures.”
The Natural World – Landscapes category was won by Kevin Nash, 56, from Cheshire, with a coastal sunset on Anglesey. The company director said: “The photo was taken just off the coast at Rhoscolyn, Anglesey, and it was a three-minute exposure at sunset. The tide was lapping at the top of my wellies, but I had to just hold out for the sunset and that was the longest three minutes of my life”.