The winners of the Open and Amateur categories of the 2013 International Loupe Awards have been announced. The overall Open Award Winner is Mark Carter from New Zealand, who receives a prize pool that includes $15,000 in cash and a VIP trip to the 2014 Creative Asia Imaging Expo in Hong Kong. The Amateur Award went to Lori Cicchini from Australia, who has won photographic equipment from the likes of Canson, Kayell, Elinchrom, Drobo, Datacolor, Orbis and IOShutter. Entries for International Loupe Awards 2014 will open in October 2014.

International Loupe Awards Press Release

THE WORLD’S BEST PHOTOGRAPHS

International Loupe Awards 2013

Now in its fifth year, the International Loupe Awards 2014 has ridden a wild wave of debate and controversy, with heated discourse over the subjectivity of competition judging and category definitions raging right up to the announcement of the overall Open & Amateur Award Winners on Friday 20th December: Mark Carter from New Zealand (Open Award) and Lori Cicchini from Australia (Amateur Award).

Notably, in a competition that featured 22 judges from 11 different countries – assessing 4,468 photographs from 1,060 different entrants from 78 countries – the domination of Australian photographers saw some people up in arms. Yet, Loupe Awards rules stipulate no judge can judge images from their own country, which means Australia’s victory has been a legitimate one and a ringing endorsement for the Australian photographic industry.

“As we’ve come to expect, running a photographic competition of this stature and scale is challenging, exciting and rewarding,” states Competition Director, Nathan Oxley. “With every successive year, the quality of the work from international photographers rises, which means boundaries are pushed in every direction. This year had its own unique challenges, and it wasn’t easy for the judges to come up with winners, but soon two came to the fore as the best overall images of the year.”

A New Zealand advertising photographer with a passion for landscape and underwater work, Mark Carter received a belated birthday gift (by one day) when Competition Director Nathan Oxley phoned to notify him of his Open Award win.

"I shot this image recently for a Mountain Dew campaign in New Zealand,” he says. “It was a huge job pulling this together, and we shot thousands of frames on the day using our hero talent and body doubles. The concept was great but really technical to pull off. It was a fantastic campaign to work on, and I couldn't be happier with the final image.”

For Australian-based Lori Cicchini, taking out the Amateur Award was a resounding note on which to conclude her photographic studies:

“I shot this image as part of my final year assignment as a photography student where I’m majoring in Fashion and Portraiture,” she says. “The image was inspired by the TV series Game of Thrones, and the idea behind creating an image like this was to push my post-production skills to a higher level. I knew it was something special as soon as it was finished.”

Mark Carter receives a prize pool that includes US$15,000 in cash and a VIP trip to the 2014 Creative Asia Imaging Expo in Hong Kong, while Lori Cicchini receives photographic equipment from the likes of Canson, Kayell, Elinchrom, Drobo, Datacolor, Orbis and IOShutter.

Entries for International Loupe Awards 2014 will open in October 2014.

Photo: Mark Carter

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