Landscape Photographer of the Year competition - My view

Personal declaration  - I have never met Charles Peregrine Waite (his full name as registered with Companies House) the founder and head judge of the Landscape Photographer of the Year  (LPotY) competition or communicated with him. I have entered the sum total of two photography competitions, both of which were the LPotY in 2008 and 2009. In 2008, I was very fortunate and surprised to have an image printed in the awards book, however, I was aware that many deserving landscape photographers images failed to make the awards book and it left a decidedly underwhelming feeling of achievement. 

Some recent research into the UK's online landscape photography community revealed some interesting insights, one of which is the appetite and preoccupation with entering photography competitions be they camera club, regional, national or international.  The LPotY competition by virtue of official support from 3 national photography magazines, official sponsorship from a national broadsheet and a £10k first prize, receives the most coverage in the UK media and comment on the internet.

However from its inaugural awards in 2007 there have been concerns raised in the wider photography community that winning and award book images have likely contravened the competition rules and with warnings ignored it was an accident waiting to happen. The LPotY 2012 saw the consequences of inept judging erupt onto the wider public stage in some fashion and it is worth a revisit of the events as they unfolded.

• On the Talk Photography forum this thread was started by David Byrne, the very photographer who was later disqualified as the overall winner. 

Amazon shipped the LPotY awards book prior to the official announcement and some early recipients of the award book raised concerns with images in the book. Social media ensured word quickly spread that the LPotY was in full omnishambles mode and the wider photography community pulled up a chair, got the popcorn in and watched as the hubris unravelled.

• Article from Landscape Photography Magazine* and a Further update from Landscape Photography magazine  that makes for more insightful reading. 
• With Byrne's images demonstrably shown to have been plagiarised, composites and digitally manipulated, he eventually claimed not to have read the competition entrance rules. Of course.
• Byrne was officially disqualified from the LPotY competition categories that didn't allow composites/digital manipulation - a total of 3 images. 
• The Daily Mail have an in-depth article *
• The awards book had already been printed and shipped to customers before the official announcement with the disqualified images, was there an official recall and reprint? Er no, that would have meant 'taking a haircut' on profit.
• The revised overall LPotY award winning image was of a row of empty tenement buildings due for demolition, which if nothing else was an appropriate visual metaphor for the LPotY competition.

It is fair to state that these events generated no little discussion across the internet and the discussion contained few positives for the LPotY competition, award book images, wider issues with photography competitions and poor standards of judging. There was some comment on the insipid and uninspiring nature of images that had graced past and present the awards books, with a consensus of opinion of a blueprint for a successful LPotY awards book image; an easily accessible view and not too visually complex or challenging to photograph. Similar to the competitions founder and head judges own photographic work then. There was some insight into Waite's personal motives for starting LPotY, Waite's landscape photography credentials and limited nature of his photography. Most commentators were unanimous in their agreement of Waite's business acumen, media savvy nous and appetite for self publicity. The judges and judging came in for particular criticism, as the manipulation wasn't subtle and the disqualified image a derivative of an existing photograph.

One positive outcome from the omnishambles of  LPotY 2012 was that the subsequent 2013 and 2014 competition results have restored a modicum of credibility by apparently enforcing the competition entrance rules for images.

Some will say the nadir of LPotY was the 2012 disqualification. However, I would contest that and point out the potential flawed nature of some LPotY awards. Consider the following :

• In 2012 the Independent Newspapers photograph blog writer, Alex Hare, wrote a total of 17 articles during his tenure of which 2 were devoted to the coverage of LPotY competition and a further article was an interview with the very same competition founder and head judge. The inaugural Independent photography blog article in May 2012 which by most definitions reads as a big plug for the LPotY competition. The Independent photography blog November 2012 was a remarkably sympathetic article on the disqualification of the overall winner. Good news for the Alex Hare though, with his 'Highly Commended' image in the competition. Indeed. 

• In 2010 the overall LPotY winner lived within walking distance of the competition founder and head judge. Wow! A small world and what a surprise it must have been. Indeed. The 2010 winner subsequently left his job and is currently employed as an instructor leading photography workshops in the LPotY founder and head judge's other commercial business which provides photography workshops. It clearly demonstrates the life changing potential of becoming the Landscape Photographer of the Year.  The word protege comes to mind.

• In 2009 the overall LPotY winner was a French based landscape photographer, with a suitably European name and an image with a questionable degree of digital manipulation. Late 2009 was when the British economy was in the grip of a serious economic recession and Government funded department budgets were under review and facing funding cuts. It must have been comforting to visibly demonstrate the foreign visitors attracted to Britain by the chance to enter LPotY. VisitBritain was and is an official sponsor of the competition.

Be in no doubt there are other coincidences.

I stopped entering the LPotY after 2009, it was then clear to me that the competition was being run for commercial gain and agenda(s), personally I couldn't support a competition that attempts to manipulate the publics perception of what landscape photography is. I am not even going to mention the Network Rail and Urban categories that really devalue the awards book or the digital manipulation encouraged in the anything goes Your View category.  Nope, it is the seascapes or the family pet in the image, that fail by some margin to satisfy the criteria for a landscape. Which is why the winning image for the 2008 LPotY was a real FFS and face palm moment, compelling evidence that the competition has f@$k all to do with landscape photography and is all about raking in the filthy lucre by attracting new punters.

With this years LPotY awards announcement due soon, I'm torrn between predicting either a female photographer winning this years competition, possibly with an image made by a phone/film/digital medium format camera or by a visiting photographer to these shores from a nation with a largely untapped market, like China ..

* NB there appears to be 'link rot', which is odd, as the participants played such a prominent role in the controversy.