Overall winner
Name: Josh Hinds LocatioN: United Kingdom Subject: Landscape, events and portraiture equipmeNt: Nikon D750 with various Nikon and Tamron lenses WebSite: www.joshhindsphotography.co.uk OUR
overall winner of the 2018 Young Photographer of the Year is Josh Hinds, who showed a tremendous level of quality, versatility and consistency throughout the competition.
He received four Top 10 Expert and 12 Top 20 Crowd awards across all of the rounds.
Josh took an interest in photography at a young age, but has been taking his photography more seriously for the last three years. “This is the first competition that I have won, and that in itself makes it a very special prize – one that I will hold dear,” he says. “There were so many amazing entrants from across the world, so it’s a great honour to have been regarded highly enough to be given the overall prize.”
Speaking about how the competition has helped increase his confidence in his photography, Josh says that he is often his own worst critic. “Seeing the high quality of the images in the Photographer of the Year really inspired me to try to reach the levels that those photographers are at, and so hopefully the belief that this win has given me will help me compete at the next level in the future!”
Josh currently enjoys travel and event photography alongside studying for his degree. “I hope to qualify as a doctor next year, so I won’t be pursuing events photography as a full-time career; but I will definitely keep up my travel and landscape adventures as a much-needed break from the wards,” he says. “The quest to take that perfect image motivates me to get up at 3am to hike up a mountain for sunrise, even though I might want to just roll over and go back to sleep!”
The main prize for winning YPOTY is a Fujifilm X-T20 with XF 18-55mm silver kit lens and a Fujinon XF 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 R LM OIS lens. Although currently Josh’s main camera is a Nikon, he mentions: “My first ‘proper’ camera was a Fujifilm bridge camera, and so I am excited to have a go with its mirrorless line-up. That does appear to be where the industry is heading, and the reviews that Fujifilm has received for its mirrorless cameras have been superb. Given the light weight and portability that they offer with no sacrifice on image quality, these are certainly going to be an attractive addition to the camera bag!”