The Google Photography Prize 2012 competition was announced back in November. The contest gave 20,000 student photographers from 146 countries the opportunity to share their best photographs with a global audience.
Seven judges were selected to determine a winner. Among them were Elina Brotherus, a landscape photographer from Finland, Joel Sternfeld who is best known for his color photos of America, and Nigel Hurst, CEO of the Saatchi Gallery in London. You can find a more detailed list of the judges and their accomplishments here.
The finalists of the the competition are Collin Avery (U.S.), Viktor Johansson (Sweden), Kyrre Lien (Norway), Alexandra Claudia Manta (Romania), Balázs Maté (Hungary), Adi Sason (Israel), Oliver Seary (UK), Dana Stirling (Israel), Sasha Tamarin (Israel), Zhao Yi (China). You can see their full albums and profiles by clicking on their names here.
Work from the 10 finalists will be shown in an exhibition at Saatchi.
I feel that Kyrre Lien’s work shows the most promise.
His ability to capture calm cooperation, bloodshed, disbelief, and inner conflict in the following picture reveals his genius. This picture was taken minutes after a bomb ripped through Oslo’s central government district. The explosion took the lives of eight people.
This other photo left me bewildered as I wondered if I should be frightened or excited for this unnamed contestant who threw him self from a 10 meter high diving board during a contest in Oslo.
The overall winner of the Google Photography Prize will be announced on April 24, and will go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to a location of their choice with a professional photographer as their mentor.
Let us know who you think are the frontrunners in the competition.