The Schools' Photo Competition Winning entries 2020
We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2020 Schools Photographic Competition. The fourth and final year of the competition attracted some excellent and highly creative results, making the Judges' job a real challenge. We would like to thank and congratulate all the children who entered, and offer many congratulations to the winners whose work is featured here.
The 2020 competition formed part of the Welwyn Garden City Centenary celebrations. Schools’ Photo Competitions have been held in each of the three previous years as a build-up to this year’s big event.
The original theme of ‘Celebrations’ was changed to ‘Lockdown’ and we achieved entries for both. The judging panel met virtually in July 2020 and had to assess images based on these two very different themes.
All the images were viewed anonymously – the judges were unaware as to the photographer’s identity or the name of the School attended. A shortlist of entries was created for each year group by reviewing and discussing all the entries and collating the judges’ individual scores. The shortlists were then reviewed.
The extent to which an image met the theme was discussed and the merits of the different images were debated. This allowed for a range of comments to be considered in arriving at a consensus view on the winners.
We were delighted to find merit in all these entries. The commentary provided with each image is intended to draw the viewer’s attention to those factors contributing to the success of the entry.
The Judging Panel
- Steve Baldwin – WGC Photo Club Chairman
- Martin Burrage – Narrative author on behalf of the Panel
- Rob Draper – WGC Photo Club Member
- Alannah Hebbert – WGC Photo Club Public Relations
- Iain Houston – WGC Photo Club Member
- Yvonne Morgan – Past Chairman WGC Photo Club and external judge
- John Reddington – WGC Photo Club Programme Secretary
- Liz Williams – Education Manager, The Royal Photographic Society
As in previous years, Richard White and Peter Budd as Competition Organisers were instrumental in organising and running the overall competition. They organised and attended the judging session but did not take part in the voting.
The Royal Photographic Society have also judged for the past 2 years.
The Prizes
1st Place – £50
2nd Place – £30
3rd Place – £20
Highly Commended (HC) – £10
Royal Photographic Society choice (RPS) – £25
1st, 2nd and 3rd also receive an engraved Trophy.
Everyone down to HC gets a certificate from the Foundation, and the RPS winners get a certificate from them – some get both.
They all get a professionally mounted print of their image at A3 size (if resolution permits).
We hope to be able to present all the prizes at a special prize giving in April 2021, if it is safe to do so.
Many congratulations again to all the winners.
Thank you
The Competition Organisers and the Judges would like to thank all those who entered both this and the previous competitions. The entries were a pleasure to view. There is some great talent amongst the entrants, and we hope that they pursue and develop further an interest in photography. The Welwyn Garden City Photo Club would be pleased to welcome them, and others with an interest in photography, as members at some future date.
We would like to acknowledge the co-operation of the WGC schools, and in particular Amie Barnard the Arts head at Stanborough school who has not only designed and produced the competition posters each year, created power point teaching aids to support the theme each year, but has also motivated her own pupils in great numbers to enter.
We are very grateful to the Stefanou Foundation who funded this year’s competition.
We hope to be able to meet the children at an official prize giving ceremony rescheduled for April 2021.
