Google Photography Prize

I extended my recent UK visit by a couple of days to attend a private viewing at the Saatchi Gallery, in aid of the Google Photography Prize, a

global competition for students to create themes for iGoogle, run in collaboration with the Saatchi Gallery London. We received over 3500 entries from 82 countries. The public voted to select the 6 finalists from a shortlist of 36 entries, and an expert jury of photographers and art critics has selected the overall winner.

Entries from the shortlisted photographer's were being projected on the walls, as various friends, family members, photography luminaries, and hangers on (I count myself in that last category of course) inspected and admired their work. And imbibed the occasional lychee mojito as necessary.

Of the finalists I was most impressed by Amelia Ortúzar, in particular this shot:

The warmth of the colours do it for me, and I think the break in composition towards the middle of the picture works very well.

The technical excellence displayed by Fahad AlDaajani's macro work was very good, and the overall composition on this photo caught my eye.

Matjaz Tancic demonstrated a very strong use of colour and form in his work, such as in this photo.

The winner, however, was Daniel Halasz, studying at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest. Here's a representative shot.

I have to confess, that doesn't do it for me; although perhaps technically well executed the subject matter, composition, and lighting don't excite me. Perhaps just as well I wasn't one of the judges.

To view these, or any of the other shortlisted entries go to http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/photographyprize/vote.html, and if you use iGoogle you can then select one of them to use as your theme.