The annual Center Choice Awards winners have been announced. The Awards recognise outstanding photographers in three categories – Curator’s Choice, Editor’s Choice and Gallerist’s Choice awards. This year, over 6,000 images were submitted to the Choice Awards from 25 countries all over the world. The Curator’s Choice Award goes to Michael Chelbin, the Editor’s Choice Award has been presented to Merritt Hewitt, while Andrea Stultiens scooped up the Galleris’s Choice Award.

Win a brand new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ45 digital camera in our exclusive competition!

We’ve teamed up with creative specialists JMS to offer you this fantastic prize that’s suitable for every degree of photography experience.

The Panasonic FZ45 is simple to use and comprises a whole host of features to help improve shots. Experience aside, these features allow novices and pros alike to capture the perfect shot.
Boasting 14.1 megapixels, the FZ45 offers photography enthusiasts a 25-27mm wide-angle, 24x optical zoom lens.
The FZ45 has HD recording facility, Intelligent Resolution Technology and 32x Intelligent Zoom. It also has intuitive manual operation for complete creative control.

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning a brand new Panasonic DMC-FZ45 digital camera is click on this video production link (this one on your left) and leave your answer to the following question.

Q. Describe your favourite photo you’ve ever taken in no more than 100 words.

It can be of absolutely anything you like. A family photo, a holiday snap, a sporting event, a city skyline, a geographical wonder - you get the gist!
The winner will be the answer that best captures the imagination of the panel of judges. If they can picture your picture, you’re in with a great shot!

Click here for our full review of the Panasonic FZ45.

Entries close at 23:59 on April 8th 2012. Good luck!

The winners of two great SLR camera bags, courtesy of Lovecases.co.uk, have been announced.

Mick Cant wins the Case Logic SLR Camera / Laptop backpack, worth £119.99.
Matt Chadwick wins the Capdase mKeeper 300a SLR Camera and Laptop Backpack, worth £69.99.

Check out Lovecases’ camera bags and DSLR camera bag range.

This contest closed on Thursday 22/03/2012.

Four artists have been shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. Pieter Hugo (b.1976, South Africa) is nominated for his publication Permanent Error, published by Prestel (Germany, 2011). Permanent Error centres on a vast dumping ground for technological waste on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital city. Rinko Kawauchi (b.1972, Japan) is nominated for her publication Illuminance, published by Editions Xavier Barral (France, 2011). Illuminance spans fifteen years of her practice and results from both personal projects and commissioned work. John Stezaker (b.1949, UK) is nominated for his exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (29 January – 18 March 2011), while Christopher Williams (b. 1956, USA) is nominated for his exhibition Kapitalistischer Realismus at Dum umení Ceské Budejovice, Budweis, Czech Republic (5 May - 12 June 2011). The winner will be announced at a special ceremony at The Photographers’ Gallery on 3 September 2012.

Barclays has teamed up with renowned street photographer Nick Turpin to find camera keen cyclists who can capture the adventure, inspiration and beauty of cycling in London. Whether you’re a seasoned photographer or simply a cycling enthusiast with an eye for a good shot, the London by Bike competition is your chance to share your skill and passion. The two top snappers will receive a deluxe London cycling weekend prize package including £1,500 of cycling equipment, sumptuous five-star hotel stay and a visit to Dinner by Heston Blumenthal at Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London plus their iconic shots will be displayed for fellow Londoners to see in a special exhibition at a London gallery this summer. To enter, all you have to do is visit the Barclays Facebook page, complete the form and simply upload your best photograph..As always, we recommend that you read the Terms and Conditions before entering your work.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has launched the 2012 RHS Photographic Competition, open to all amateur and professional photographers worldwide. Adult categories range from wildlife and people in the garden, to plant portraits. The overall winner will be crowned RHS Photographer of the Year and win £1,000. Note that entry fees apply (£5 per photograph for RHS members, £6 for non-members). Children and young photographers are also invited to compete for the RHS Young Photographer of the Year title, and prizes include a digital camera and photographic vouchers. There are no entry fees to enter the under 18 categories. Photographs can be submitted online at the website below.

The World Photography Organisation (WPO) has announced the Open and Youth category winners in the 2012 Sony World Photography Awards. Category winners in the Open Competition include Filippo Di Rosa (Architecture), Sanket K (Arts & Culture), Victor Vargas Villafuerte (Enhanced), Natalia Belentsova (Low Light), Giovanni Frescura (Nature & Wildlife, for the photograph shown above), Denise Worden (Panoramic), Ana Gregori? (People), Piotr Stasiuk (Smile), Tobias Bräuning (Split Second) and Krzysztof Browko (Travel). Category winners in the Youth Competition include Kolyaskin Sergey (Culture), Bernard Pieterse (South Africa) and Karian Sembe (Portraits). The overall Open and Youth competition winners will be announced at the annual Sony World Photography Awards ceremony and gala dinner on 26th April at the Hilton Hotel in London’s Park Lane.

The winners of the ‘The Shot’ short film competition have been unveiled. David Schofield was the outright winner, wining £5,000 worth of Nikon photographic equipment and an all expenses trip to spend the day with Film Director Paul WS Anderson on the set of his latest movie. Budding filmmakers in the UK were asked to produce a 10 minute film entitled ‘The Shot’ using a Digital SLR camera.

National Geographic Student Expeditions, the student travel programme for the National Geographic Society, has launched a student photography competition. Open to US students in grades 9-12, the National Geographic Student Expeditions Photo Contest runs until 31 March, and winners will be selected by 16 April 2012.  The grand prize for the student photo contest is a spot on the London Photography Workshop this summer.  Second and third place prizes are $250 and $100 gift cards, respectively, to the National Geographic Store. For more information and to enter, visit the website below.

Website: National Geographic Student Expeditions Photo Contest

Talenthouse has issued a new Creative Invite to photographers, encouraging them to submit their finest portrait photograph for the chance to receive an exclusive feature on viewbug.com. The winning photograph will be featured and promoted on ViewBug’s website and social media channels, providing global exposure for the winner. In addition, the winner will receive a 16 GB iPad 2. One runner-up, as selected by guest judge Robert Caplin - recognised for his work with famed magazines including National Geographic and Time - will have their submission featured on ViewBug’s social media channels. The deadline for entries is 15 April. The winner will be announced on 7 May 2012. As always, we suggest that you read the official rules and submission guidelines before entering your work.

Website: Talenthouse

Professional photo printing lab theprintspace has announced that it will host the awards ceremony & exhibition of the Professional Photographer of the Year (PPOTY) 2011 Awards. Organised by Professional Photographer Magazine, the competition was open to digital submissions by photographers from the UK and those across the globe, and there were 13 different categories to compete in, such as The Wild World, Street Photography, Still Life and Breaking the Mould. At the awards ceremony, a winner and runner-up will be appointed in each category as well as an overall winner, who will receive the Professional Photographer of the Year title. In addition, the best portfolio will also be recognised and awarded. The exhibition will run from Thursday 22nd March until Wednesday 11th April, at theprintspace gallery on 74 Kingsland Road, London.

The winners of the February 2012 Photography Blog Competition have been announced. The theme for February was “Friends” - you can view all of the entries in this gallery. Here are the 5 winners:

1st Place
A lifelong friendship by miliu

Prize: X-Rite ColourChecker Passport
Kindly donated by X-Rite
http://www.xritephoto.com/

The winners of the fifth International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) competition have been announced. The title winner of the £5,000 prize for the best single image is Polish photographer, Magdalena Wasiczek for Upside Down (above). The Best Portfolio Prize is awarded to Joanna Stoga, also from Poland, for Qi - a collection of six incredible images created using x-ray imagery. The Young Garden Photographer of the Year title goes to 15-year-old Patrick Corning for his enchanting photograph of a male Grey-Tailed Mountaingem Hummingbird feeding from garden flowers in the Cordillera de Talamanca mountain range in Costa Rica.

The lucky winner of a Buffalo LinkStation Pro Quad worth £450, courtesy of Buffalo Technology, is Philip Kendall.

The Buffalo LinkStation Pro Quad (LS-QVL) is the ideal storage solution for discerning home and SOHO users. This high performance, dual drive NAS device can be configured in RAID 0 (striping) for maximum performance and RAID 1 (mirroring) for maximum data security. Even if a hard drive fails, your important files will remain safe. Streaming of digital content too, is a breeze at ultra fast data transfer speed of 72MB per second. For a busy home or SOHO user, the LinkStation Pro Quad – which runs on a high-speed Marvel 1.6GHz CPU - is a natural choice. Buffalo products can be purchased from Amazon.

Make sure to visit the Buffalo Technology UK Facebook page for all the latest news.

This contest closed on Thursday 23/02/2011.

The 3 lucky winners of a Kingston Wi-Drive, which enhances the usability of your Apple iOS wi-fi device, are Richard Griffith, Peter Barber and Murray Kellett.

The Kingston Wi-Drive lets you share your favourite content with your favourite people. The Wi-Drive offers up to 16GB of portable storage and wireless file sharing for Apple devices, including iPod touch Gen 3 & 4, iPhone and iPad. Your content can be shared simultaneously by three users on their own devices, whether at home by the pool, or off the beaten path on a camping trip Rugged and easy to use, it comes with a USB cable and requires an App downloadable at Apple’s App Store. The Wi-Drive utilises Flash-based storage technology to promote wireless portable storage in an external device that is independent of the basic portable Apple device. Is features integrated Wi-Fi and four hours of battery life and is backed by a one-year warranty, 24/7 technical support and legendary Kingston reliability.

Watch a video of the Kingston Wi-Drive here.

This contest closed on Thursday 23/02/2011.

The European paper industry association - CEPI - is offering photographers the chance to win cash prizes at their photo competition, “Paper Moments”. Entries will be judged by a panel of high-profile judges who will consider a range of factors including composition, originality, interpretation of the brief and the practical usability of the photographs. The overall winner will receive €1,500, while the 2nd and 3rd place winners will be awarded €750 and €500, respectively. The winning entries will be exhibited during the European Paper Week which will take place in Brussels 13-15 November. Photos may be submitted until 31st May via the website below.

The winner of this year’s Prix Pictet will be announced in London by Honorary President Kofi Annan. The theme of the competition, which will be judged by an internationally recognised panel of experts chaired by Professor Sir David King, is power. The jury is looking for photographs of the highest artistic quality, which most powerfully contribute to public awareness of issues involving sustainability, with a particular focus on the chosen theme. The winner will be named in October. For more information, visit the website below.

The winners of the World Press Photo of the Year contest have been announced. The overall winner is Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda for his image of a woman holding a wounded relative in her arms, inside a mosque used as a field hospital by demonstrators against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, during clashes in Sanaa, Yemen on 15 October 2011 (above). The jury gave prizes in nine themed categories to 57 photographers of 24 nationalities from: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the USA. The winning entries have been chosen from 101254 images submitted by 5,247 photographers from 124 countries.

East London gallery and pro lab theprintspace is calling all photography enthusiasts to join its “World” competition on Facebook. As the official sponsor and print partner of the 2012 Sony World Photography Awards, theprintspace has teamed up with the World Photography Organisation (WPO) to offer the winners of the World Competition exclusive prizes. Interested photographers can upload one image which illustrates their perception of the world. Prizes range from tickets to the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, a Premium WPO 12 month membership, professional 20”x24” Dibond mounts and prints, a space in theprintspace’s annual SoShowMe Exhibition to features on theprintspace blog. The submission deadline is 20th February. You can read the rules and enter your work through the website below.

The winners of the January 2012 Photography Blog Competition have been announced. The theme for January was “Technology” - you can view all of the entries in this gallery. Here are the 5 winners:

1st Place
Always Keep In Touch by Barry John

Prize: X-Rite ColourChecker Passport
Kindly donated by X-Rite
http://www.xritephoto.com/