A mere volcano was never going to stop Scott Gray and his dedicated team at The World Photography Organisation getting the show on the road and set up at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France in time for the World Photography Festival opening on the 21st.
With an entire week of superb events, seminars and of course the world famous photography Awards the vast majority of people got themselves there by whatever means possible, for us it meant an epic 950 mile road trip with just 24 hours to do it in.
A good job too because during an awesome event I picked up a win in the Advertising category and gained the title Advertising Photographer of The year. The legendary photojournalist Scott Thode, also editor of VII (previously Fortune mag) presented my award during an amazingly impressive show at the Palais, followed up by dinner at The Majestic where much Champagne flowed.
One big stage!
I really have to thank the judges this year, they were Nadav Kander, Chloe Limpkin, Scott Thode and Mark Sealy, having judged awards myself its no easy task so I congratulate them on a job well done. It was a thrill just to meet Scott, I was always a big admirer of his shot over many years in and around Greenwich Village, he has created so many incredible images that I can only inadequately describe as soul stirring. If you only ever see one of his photo essays then make it Venus Rising, click the link and you’ll see why (choose the quicktime version!)
I had the pleasure of Chloes company at the aftershow dinner and I was also sat next to fellow Brit David Handley who picked up the win for fashion, if theres anything that could make winning this award any better then surely it has to be the many wonderful people we met.
Cannes needs no introduction it certainly lived up to its reputation as being the cultural home of awards, its was the perfect setting and was pretty well packed out despite the best efforts of volcano Eyjafjallajökull.
The images were shot for COI, not as an anti smoking campaign but as a warning of the dangers of buying under the counter ciggies, most people assume that these are smuggled in from Calais etc and youre just avoiding the duty, however to our horror it turns out that the vast majority of these ciggies are counterfeit! The client was keen that the ad was truthful so all the ‘ingredients’ used have been found in confiscated hauls of these things. We’re talking rat faeces, rat, maggots, beetles, dirt.. well pretty much anything you can sweep off the floor. The best bit (or worst) everything we used was real and 98% of the ‘items’ were in our models mouths at some point, I hasten to add everything was clinically clean!
You can see the winning images here on the WPO site.