The Pentax Photo Gallery website has been nominated for the 12th Annual Webby Awards. Dubbed the “Oscars of the Internet”, the Pentax website is up for the Best Use of Photography in a website for 2008 award. “The Webby Awards honors the outstanding websites that are setting the standards for the Internet,” said David-Michel Davies, executive director of The Webby Awards. “PENTAX’s virtual photo gallery Webby Award nomination is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators.” From now until May 1st 2008, fans may cast their votes for The Pentax Photo Gallery website.

Arup Ghosh has been named the Sony World Photography Awards Amateur Photographer of the Year. As well as the title, Ghosh wins a $5,000 cash prize donated by headline sponsor Sony. Eight other category winners were also selected from 25,934 amateur submissions. Judge Mary Ellen Mark commented, “The calibre of amateur photography is outstanding – far higher than I had imagined - and in many cases reaching professional standard.”

ATP is launching a long-term global promotional partnership program with Panoramio, a geotag-oriented photo sharing website. This partnership will be kicked off with a co-hosted world wide photo contest which will focus on geotagged photos. Panoramio users can submit photos tagged with GPS location data in four categories, with prizes including the ATP PhotoFinder, the world’s first on-the-go geotagging device.

Smithsonian Magazine has announced the 50 finalists for its fifth annual photo contest. The grand prize winner and the five category winners will be featured online and in a print issue of Smithsonian Magazine this summer. For the first time, this year’s photo contest has a new people’s choice category in which visitors to Smithsonian.com can vote for their favorite photo. Smithsonian magazine has a worldwide circulation of more than two million.

Professional Photographer magazine is hosting a Cover Photo Contest from March 1 to May 31, 2008. Open to all photographers, entries will be judged on technical and artistic merit. The winner will land the cover of a 2008 edition of the magazine plus a selection of prizes totaling more than $15,000. Visit http://www.ppmag.com for submission details and to enter.

There’s still time to enter the MyShot08 photo contest, which closes on March 31st. To date there have been almost 180 entries submitted by college students, with the overall winner to be mentored and work side by side with professional photographer George Kamper on a Miami photo shoot and receive a Fujifilm infrared camera valued at $3,000. Entries will be accepted until March 31 in three digital printing application categories – personalized photo books, greeting cards and calendars.

PhotoShelter is now accepting submissions for Elevation 2008, the company’s first annual student-to-pro award and competition. Elevation 2008 provides the next generation of professional photographers an opportunity to gain exposure to some of the most influential and discriminating eyes in publishing. Judges will select five winners who best demonstrate their unique perspective as an artist and the ability to produce commercially viable images. Elevation 2008 is open to all students currently enrolled in domestic and international colleges and universities.

Photography.Book.Now is a new photography book competition celebrating self-published photography books and the photographers behind them. Photographers are invited to submit their most creative, most innovative, and finest self-published photography books. Entries will be accepted in two categories, General and Themed. To enter the Photography.Book.Now contest, photographers submit their photography books by July 14, 2008.

CITY Magazine has launched its second annual “One City, Many Destinations” travel photography contest. Amateur and professional photographers from around the world are invited to submit images that capture the essence of a city or other travel destination. First prize is appearing on the cover of CITY’s Fall ’08 Travel issue, on sale September 30, 2008. The grand-prize winner will also receive a prize package that will include an all-inclusive, week-long trip for two to Austria.

A new world-wide photography contest aims to highlight the role of the potato as a source of food, employment and income in developing countries. The International Year of the Potato Contest is being held in conjunction with the UN’s International Year of the Potato (IYP) in 2008. The contest invites photographers to capture the spirit of the International Year in images that illustrate potato cultivation, processing, trade, marketing, consumption and utilization. Cash prizes totalling US$11000 as well as Nikon cameras are on offer.

Pro-Imaging, an international organisation representing professional photographers from over 30 countries, has published a list of so-called “rights grabbing” photography competitions. Chief suspects include the British Council, which is promoting the Creative Cities competition, the Adobe Design Achievement Awards, and Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Competition, amongst others. This is the start of a long term campaign by Pro-Imaging to persuade competition promoters and sponsors to adopt practices which respect all the rights of all creators.

Picstop are giving away a photographic holiday weekend anywhere in the British Isles. PicStop has teamed up with Northscape to offer a holiday that’s ideal for all levels of expertise whether you want to simply learn the basics, improve on your current skills and take them to the next level. The competition is free to enter, registration is quick and easy, all you have to do is answer one simple multiple choice question.

Giotto’s has teamed up with photographer Charlie Waite and Light & Land to offer the chance to win a trip to the Lake District. Giotto’s is looking for the best image taken with the aid of a tripod. The lucky winner of this competition will win a place on the Lake District tour, which takes place from 23-25th September 2008.

Samsung Cameras are offering you the chance to win a unique Red Letter Days experience worth up to £1,000. The prize draw includes top prizes such as a Top Gun style aerobatics ride for two plus other major prizes including dinner on the Orient Express and a hot air balloon ride. To take part simply complete the on-line claim form no later than 31st March 2008.

The Assignment is a new European photography competition from Canon which challenges amateur photographers to submit their best work. There are four categories - Portrait, Landscape, Sport and Macro - and 19 European countries are taking part. “The Assignment will help amateur photographers across Europe to realise their ambitions,” said Mogens Jensen, Head of Canon Consumer Imaging, Europe. “Canon EOS has revolutionised D-SLR photography, and with this high-profile competition we hope to inspire even more people to take up this rewarding, creative hobby.” Pre-registration for The Assignment begins on 18th February, and the competition opens on 17th March and runs until 1st May.

The shortlist for the Sony World Photography Awards has been announced. 10 professional and 7 amateur photographers have been shortlisted in each category from 44,641 professional photograph entries and 25,934 amateur photograph entries. The Awards will be celebrated in Cannes, France from 21st to 25th April 2008, with a top prize of $25,000 for the Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year.

British photographer Tim Hetherington is the winner of World Press Photo of the Year 2007. His image of a US soldier, resting in a bunker in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, was chosen from a total of 80,536 images. This year, a record 5,019 professional photographers from 125 countries submitted images. Hetherington will receive a cash prize of €10,000 from World Press Photo at an awards ceremony in Amsterdam on 27 April. An exhibition of the prize-winning World Press Photo images will be shown from 29 April to 22 June in the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam.

The winners of the 2007 International Travel Photographer of the Year competition are on display at a free-to-enter exhibition at London’s Exposure Gallery from February 5th-28th. The overall winner was Cat Vinton from London, seeing off photographers from 51 countries. Entrants from Australia, Canada, Finland, India, Poland, Switzerland, the UK and USA were amongst the category prizewinners. The Exposure Gallery is at 22-23 Little Portland Street, London.

Work side by side with a renowned photographer at a Miami photo shoot and receive a camera valued at $3,000 in the MyShot08 photo contest. Open to all U.S. registered college students, MyShot08 aims to find the best images in three digital printing applications – personalized photo books, greeting cards or calendars. “The contest is giving young people a way to liberate their digital images from their computers and cell phones and make printed products that capture their personalized memories,” said Quincy Allen, president, Xerox Production Systems Group.  “We are hoping to open the eyes of talented college photographers about how easy and fun it is to create these kinds of specialty products.” All entries need to be submitted by March 31, 2008.

The Sony World Photography Awards is now offering the the winner of the amateur competition a substantial $5,000 cash prize. Submissions closed on 31st January with a total of 25,934 amateur photograph entries and 44,641 professional photograph entries across the categories. Saatchi Online, one of the biggest names in the arts and photography world, has signed up to partner the World Photography Awards and support the amateur community. The winners will be announced on 15th February 2008.