ePHOTOzine members win Practical Photography competition

The Photographer of the Year competition, run by Practical Photography and Jessops, involved an international field of thousands of pros and amateurs over a period of ten months. Following two rounds, John and Paul were the last two in the competition in a head to head final stage. Paul walks away with £4000 of holiday vouchers, and John with £500 of Jessops vouchers.

Both John and Paul are regular posters on ephotozine and got through the first qualifying round of the competition with images from their ephotozine galleries. This image from John won the 'Low Light' round and Paul qualified with this shot, in the 'Travel' category.

Round 2, with a much reduced field of 80 photographers saw a new theme of “On my doorstep”. Following their submissions, both John and Paul were then short listed for the grand final with the theme Lust for Life.

About John:
John bought his first ever SLR a couple of years back and was instantly addicted (i.e. obsessed). He enjoys taking pictures of most stuff, but a love of being outdoors is leading him to specialise more and more in ultra wide angle landscapes and low light work. He's based in the North East of England, and shoots mainly in the Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors and Lake District.

John has a deep affinity for capturing fresh views of his local landscapes, after spending much of his childhood exploring the local countryside in the holidays with his mates. He also enjoys a technical challenge and the low light work particularly appeals to this, often involving tricky long exposures from multiple light sources, and sheer persistence to get the right weather and light conditions. More of John's work can been seen here on ePHOTOzine, on his web site www.newfocusphoto.com.

About Paul:
The first SLR that Paul owned was a Canon EOS 500 which he bought “plenty” of years ago and used right up until he went digital and purchased a Canon 20D when it was first launched. He used to take lots of photographs on film since his early teens but didn’t really understand the fundamentals of what made a good photograph – light, composition, subject etc so finally decided to do a City and Guilds in Photography about 3 years ago where he learnt how a photograph is made, did all his own developing and even made my own pinhole camera!

He has a love for landscape photography but also has a passion for architecture and whenever possible attempts to combine elements from both. Also, in the last year, Paul has developed a strong passion for black and white photography and whenever possible looks for subjects that will work in mono.

More of Paul’s work can be seen here on ePHOTOzine, or on his website at www.paulstefan.co.uk