Seven amateur Asian photographers were victorious in last month’s Sony World Photography Awards ‘Open’ Competition. A noticeable achievement for Asian photography, given there were only ten categories in all.
The Open Competition is the precursor event to the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards. The suitably grand Somerset House in London will celebrate the shortlisted professional photographers with an exhibition that opens next week, on April 26.
Gilbert Yu, from Hong Kong, won the Arts and Culture category, Hoang Hiep Nguyen from Vietnam won in the Enhanced section, Elmar Akhemetov from Kazakhstan won in the Low Light section, Yeow Kwang Yeo from Singapore took the rpize for the Panoramic award, Hisatomi Tadahiko from Japan won the People category, Ming Hui Guan from China took the prize in the Smile category and Manny Fajutag won the Travel award. This is surely an indication of the diversity and quality of amateur photography across Asia.
Will Asia dominate again, at the professional event? They are certainly well represented in every category: fashion, travel, wildlife, landscape, portraiture and current affairs.
Jin’s work is a powerful collection of photos taken in the far north of Siberia in Russia
Hong Kong artist, Justin Jin, has been featured by the World Photography Organisation for his series ‘Zone of Absolute Discomfort’, which was shortlisted in the ‘Contemporary Issues’ category.
Jin’s work is a powerful collection of photos taken in the far north of Siberia in Russia, where he lived for several years.
He says, ‘Poetic beauty smothers pristine nature; yet in this vast land, the world’s most polluting industries scar the earth; powerful military bases stand guard in the former Cold War frontier; and large-scale unemployment and alcoholism afflict a dying population.’
The Russian Arctic region was the inspiration for the title of Justin Lin’s project, known as ‘The Zone of Discomfort’ by ‘Moscow bureaucrats’.
‘This crucial period in the Far North fascinated me so much that I did much of the groundwork myself, trudging for days in deep snow and pushing my body and my cameras to their limits.’
Like this project and the others shortlisted, the World Photography Awards exhibition will present more than just jaw dropping images, it will provide an unrivalled reflective commentary of the world in 2012.
By Jack Goodman
