A photo taken by Hamburg shipping fund manager, Holger Laufer, at China’s Hantong Shipyard has won TradeWinds’ Maritime Photographer of the Year contest.
Laufer took the photo during a visit to the yard to see a supramax bulker that he had arranged the KG financing for sliding down the slipway.
Holger’s firm HCI Capital provided the equity for a couple of bulkers and a containership which he visited on a trip to the Jiangsu Hantong Ship Heavy Industry yard.
Laufer whose photo I took almost 26% of the votes faced a strong late challenge from runner up John Jones of Clarksons Valuations whose photo B of a Hapag-Lloyd operated 15,000-gt cruiseship, C Columbus (built 1997) passing under London’s Tower Bridge got 22.3% of the votes.
Congratulations to Laufer who wins a Nikon D90 digital SLR and TradeWinds' Maritime Photographer of the Year trophy.
Many of the votes in the final days of the contest were for either Holger’s or Jones’ photos although there was also a late run of support for Stephan Asheuer’s photo K of a wintry port of Hamburg which came third with 15% of the votres.
Next in line with 10% of the votes is photo L of water mist shrouding the 23,000 gas carrier Navigator Saturn (built 2000) taken by the ship's master, Wojciech Wachowiak.
In fifth position with 6.4% of the votes was photo F showing the 4,500-dwt chemical carrier Patricia Essberger (built 2000) ploughing through ice as the vessel approaches the Gulf of Finland port of Porvoo. The photo was taken by Tim Johannsen of Essberger Tankers.
Photo G of a tobacco coloured image of vessels at a busy anchorage from Jameel Hamidou of NOS Shipmanagement, Singapore got 4% of the votes.
Photo J of propellors at the Odense Lindo yard in Denmark taken by Hans Laue of Gisholt Shipping, Florida got late votes to lift its support to 3%.
Close behind was photo A of a of a dry dock welder under a shower of sparks sent by Capt John L David of London based casualty investigators Marine Professionals. It got 2.6% of the votes.
Click here to view a gallery of the short listed entries.
Photos D from Dutch shipping recruiter Tom van den Broeke was close behind with 2.5% of the votes. It showing DFDS's 4,100-dwt ferry King of Scandinavia (built 1987) passing his office while he was reading a TradeWinds internet article about the same company.
In penultimate position was Photo E from Ron Davies of Harwin Shipping Agency, London, showing three vessels lined up as if in a race. It got 1.6% of the votes.
Bringing up the rear of the shortlist with 1.4% of the votes was Photo C of a crane barge off the Greek port of Patras taken by Odysseas Xerizotis.
The contest is now over for this year. Thanks to all who participated by either submitting entries or voting.
Last year’s winner was Daewoo Mangalia manager, Sebastian Depner, with a photo of a line up of seagulls on a mooring rope of a containership being readied for delivery at the Romanian shipyard.
The previous year the winner was Capt Charles Brown of OSG Shipmanagement with a stunning shot of his 47,200-dwt products carrier Overseas Maremar (built 1998) about to sail under a rainbow.
In 2007 the winner was Egor Ryabchenko with a photo of the ice encrusted 5,500-dwt Rusich-5 (built 2005) in the Baltic Sea. The ship had particular meaning for the Russian maritime banker as his father, was one of the main designers of this sea-river cargoship series.
Click here to view:
Competition rules
- This is a maritime photography competition so only images relating to the merchant shipping industry are eligible. Images submitted may reflect shipboard life, show vessels or parts of vessels, illustrate maritime operations, news events or otherwise have a clear relationship to our industry while demonstrating the creative and/or technical skills of the photographer.
- Photographs can be entered as digital images, prints or transparencies and be colour or monochrome. Up to 10 images may be submitted by each contestant.
- Digital images should be submitted as jpg files of at least 1MB, print entries should be of a minimum size of 125mm x 175mm, while transparencies should be 35mm format or larger. Good quality scans of prints or transparencies are also acceptable.
- Images should be the original work of the contestant and taken since 1 January 2009. Images should be without embedded text or date stamps. All entries should be accompanied by a caption showing where and when the photograph was taken, the name of the ship if relevant, the camera used and the name of the photographer.
- Images should not have been digitally created or edited but use of filters, time exposures and other traditional photographic techniques is acceptable.
- A contestant's occupation should be in the shipping or related maritime industries. Those eligible include seafarers, shipowners, shipmanagers, shipbrokers, marine surveyors and inspectors, classification and marine administration officials, port employees, search and rescue and coastguard officers, ship finance, marine insurance and shipping law professionals, as well as students on a course leading to a shipping industry career. The competition is not open to ship enthusiasts, professional photographers or naval personnel, other than those involved in search and rescue, pirate interdiction or other services relating to merchant shipping. Employees of TradeWinds and related companies are also not eligible.
- The winning contestant will receive a Nikon D90 digital SLR or equivalent camera and the TradeWinds' Maritime Photographer of the Year trophy. The winning image and the name of the successful contestant will be published by TradeWinds soon after the closing date.
- Copyright remains with the photographer but TradeWinds may publish submitted images in the course of this or future photographic competitions.
- TradeWinds reserves the right to crop images for the purposes of publication.
- Digital images should be e-mailed to competition@tradewinds.no with the attached images clearly captioned along with details of the contestant. Prints or slides can be mailed to TradeWinds Photo Competition, Christian Krohgs gate 16, PO Box 1182 Sentrum, N-0107 Oslo, Norway, or TradeWinds Photo Competition, International Press Centre, 76 Shoe Lane, London EC4A 3JB, England.
- The closing date for entries for the competition is noon GMT on Wednesday 1 December. A short list of the best entries will be selected by the editor of TradeWinds with the final winner chosen through a readers' vote. Voting closes noon GMT Wednesday 15 December with the winner to be announced shortly afterwards.
- In all matters relating to this competition, the decision of the editor of TradeWinds is final. TradeWinds will do its best to return submitted images if requested but is under no obligation for any lost or damaged.
The feature packed 12.3 megapixel Nikon D90 digital SLR comes with an 18mm-105mm zoom lens and should help the winner take even better photographs.
The successful contestant may, however, choose another digital or film camera or item of photographic equipment of equivalent value.(Copyright)
