Chennai gives India its Photographer of the Year 2011
New
Delhi , February 2, 2012: After a record breaking
66,782 entries from remote towns, cities all over India, a
Photojournalist based in the city of Chennai won accolades as the
Photographer of the Year 2011.
Better
Photography, one of India’s leading photography magazines’s much
awaited contest, currently in its seventh year declared Mr. S L
Shanthkumar as the rightful winner by the final judge, the legendary
photojournalist and Magnum photographer Raghu Rai .
Working
with a leading newspaper, Mr. S L Shanthkumar was extremely excited
after the win. “I am extremely grateful to Better Photography. Being
judged by the best in the industry that appreciates and recognizes your
talent is an extremely humbling experience. It was hard work and
dedication that persuaded me to concentrate on photography. Achieving a
title as the ‘photographer of the year’ is completely priceless. I am
thrilled and honoured.”
As the grand prize, he has
won a Canon EOS 7D, among other exciting prizes and earned the title ,
Canon-Better Photography Photographer of the Year 2011 on a national platform.
The
competition was organized by Better Photography India’s No.1
photography magazine in sponsorship with title partner Canon along with
Associate Partner Canvera and Television Partner CNBC TV18 and the win
was celebrated at the gala awards ceremony on 1st February
2012. The award night saw a large presence from both sides of the
photography fraternity, the photographers as well as the manufacturers.
Mr.
Seiji Hamanishi, Group Head, Image Communications Products Group, “Canon
is delighted to support the Better Photography in this endeavor.
Opportunities like these assist people to share their thoughts and
ideas through photography and Canon salutes these outstanding minds.”
The
contest submissions closed on December 31, 2011 and the magazine
received a whopping 66,782 entries. The entrants were allowed to
participate in multiple themes with a maximum of four entries per
theme. For the photo essay, participants could send up to two series of
images-each containing a minimum of six and maximum of 12 images.
The
chosen eight contestants were from different
cities and were flown to Mumbai
and each of the eight categories was selected by an esteemed panel of
judges.
The
winners of the eight categories are as follows:
The
Joy of Colour- S L Shanthkumar, Still Life: Obvious Things- Nilesh
Bhange, Portraiture: I, Me, Myself- Nirvair Singh, Reflections- Gokul
Mudambile , Landscapes: Play of Light-Neelima Vallangi,Wildlife: Animal
Behaviour- Baiju Patil ,Life on the Streets- Sudipto Das, Photo Essay:
Song of the Road- Vinit Gupta.
The
eight contestants had to fight it out in a decisive final face-off that took place from
29th- 31st January 2012 wherein they had the opportunity to shoot the
city of Mumbai through their lenses.
According to Raghu Rai,
“These awards are a great platform for young photographers. For them,
it is important to realize that their photographs must exude freshness,
instead of simply duplicating the kind of work they have seen before.
The talent India has is spectacular. All we need to do is to channelize
it in a better way, and focus our energies to make pictures that are
shot straight from the heart.”
Better
Photography editor, K Madhavan Pillai said “The number of entries was
unbelievable. It’s the seventh year for the contest and we are going
strong. During the category judging we realized that there is so much
untapped talent in the country. We plan to conduct many more
opportunities through photography to explore the talent and
capabilities of the people of India.”
The
curtain raiser of Photographer Of the Year 2012 would be
telecasted on CNBC TV18 and would be featured on 18th February 2012 at 3:30pm and the final
awards show would be telecasted on 19th February 2012 at
5:30pm. The
contest was promoted on a large scale through television promotions on
CNBC TV18, CNN IBN, Awaaz, CNN IBN, IBN Lokmat, magazine advertisements
in Better Photography, Overdrive, T3, Chip, AV Max, Better Interiors,
Entrepreneur, Burrp, Noise Factory along with banner ads across web18
sites including In.com , Moneycontrol.com , Ibnlive, Ibn khabar,
Cricketnext.com and e-mailers to the vast Network 18 database.
Photo
Caption: Photo
1 - L to R : K Madhavan Pillai (Editor, Better Photography),
Sandeep Khosla, CEO, publishing, Infomedia 18 Ltd., S L Shanthkumar
(winner POY 2011), Mr. Seiji Hamanishi, Group Head, Image
Communications Products Group, Canon India, renowned photographer Raghu
Rai.
Photo2-
Category jury members and category winners on the podium together.
ABOUT
BETTER PHOTOGRAPHY – India’s No.1 Photography Magazine
Better
Photography has
been one of the leading photography magazines in India and South Asia
for over fourteen years now. It is published by Infomedia18 Ltd, one of
India’s leading publishing houses. The magazine’s primary audience
includes serious enthusiasts and amateurs and covers a wide variety of
content. Basic and advanced level techniques, reviews of latest cameras
and photography gadgets along with interviews with the most reputed
photographers from around the world forms the core of the content of Better
Photography.
ABOUT
INFOMEDIA18 LIMITED
Informedia18
[BSE: 509069; NSE: INFOMEDIA], the printing and publishing arm of
Network18 is one of the leading publishers of business publications in
the country. Its stable includes a number of B2C publications like
Overdrive, Chip, Better Photography, Entrepreneur, Better Interiors,
T3, AV Max, Noise Factory. Apart from these, it also publishes a large
number of business to business publications and Yellow Pages. The
latest in its kitty is the newly launched Better Photography Hindi as
well as Overdrive Hindi, while through a pioneering initiative
Overdrive is also available as an ipad app. After Market targeted at
the automotive aftermarket industry is another new launch under its
business to business publications.
Canon
in India
Canon
India closed the year of 2011 with revenues of Rs 1525 crore which is
21 % growth over 2010. Revenues in 2010 were Rs. 1260 Crores, a 50%
growth over 2009. Canon focuses on multiple market segments of
consumer, B2B, Government & Commercial. Canon’s product portfolio
extends over a vast variety of copier MFDs, fax-machines, printers,
scanners, All-in-ones, digital cameras, camcorders and multimedia
projectors, cable ID printers, semiconductors and card printers.
Canon
India Pvt. Ltd. is a 100% subsidiary of Canon Singapore Pte. Ltd.; a
world leader in imaging technologies. Set up in 1997, Canon India
markets over 140 comprehensive range of sophisticated contemporary
digital imaging. The company today has offices in 7 cities, warehouses
in 13 cities across India and employs over 930 people. Canon has
approximately 380 primary channel partners 13 National Retail Chain
partners, and over 4000 secondary retail points. Oce distributors in
India will now be a part of Canon partner network. Canon’s service
reach extends to over 200 towns with over 300 service Engineers, 6
Master services centers and 8 Authorized Service Franchise, 34 Canon
Care Centers and 150 Authorized service centers. Canon and Océ products
are available with complete service support network. More information
is available on the www.canon.com
website
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