The winners of this year's Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) prize have been revealed. The top prize – the Cutty Sark Award for the Travel Photographer of the Year 2013 – goes to British photographer Timothy Allen for his B&W images of the mud mosque replastering festival and Dogon life in Mali, and his studies of individuals in Wales and Bhutan. The Young Travel Photographer of the Year 2013 is 14 year old Jonathan Rystrøm from Denmark, while the 14 and Under Young TPOTY category was won by 10 year-old Patria Prasaysa from Indonesia.

TPOTY Press Release

Our world: in pictures

The winning images in the 2013 Travel Photographer of the Year awards are revealed

From the exuberance of a community festival at a mud mosque in Mali to the solitude of life ‘off the grid’ in Wales, from sweeping landscapes and cityscapes to the minutiae of an ant colony and remarkable, close-up detail of lions on the hunt, the award-winning images in the 2013 international Travel Photographer of the Year awards (TPOTY) document the magnificence, beauty and poignancy of this planet and its inhabitants.

This vibrant, entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking selection gives glimpses both of cultures and places that many of us will never travel to and of familiar destinations, all captured by the hugely talented amateur and professional photographers who beat entrants from nearly 100 countries. 

The top prize – the Cutty Sark Award for the Travel Photographer of the Year 2013 – goes to British photographer Timothy Allen for his B&W images of the mud mosque replastering festival and Dogon life in Mali, and his studies of individuals in Wales and Bhutan. A long-time TPOTY entrant, who has been a category winner on a number of occasions, Timothy has now scooped the contest’s highest award. His prize is £5,000 plus a complete set of Cutty Sark's award-winning range of blended whiskies - Cutty Sark Blend, Storm, Prohibition, 12 years old, 18 years old and the highly collectable Limited Edition Tam o'Shanter. In addition, he'll receive a bespoke, personalised Cutty Sark/TPOTY surfboard. As Timothy is both a whisky fan and a surfer, the prize is sure to be put to good use!

TPOTY 2013 offered a great range of prizes across all categories, from sponsors cazenove + loyd, Fujifilm, Genesis Digital, Photo Iconic, Plastic Sandwich, the Yosemite/Mariposa Co. Tourism Bureau, San Francisco Travel and Sonoma County Tourism.

The Young Travel Photographer of the Year 2013 is 14 year old Jonathan Rystrøm from Denmark, while the 14 and Under Young TPOTY category was won by 10 year-old Patria Prasaysa from Indonesia, and 17 year-old Chase Guttman (USA) has once again taken an award in Young TPOTY, this time winning the 15-18 age group.

In the portfolio sections, Jino Lee (Singapore) won the Monochromal category, while the British-born, Thailand-based photographer Gavin Gough took the top slot in Vanishing & Emerging Cultures. Jasper Doest (Netherlands) and Johnny Haglund (Norway) shared top honours in Wild Stories with two sharply contrasting portfolios; one beautiful, the other gritty.

The New Talent award went to British medical student Tom Pepper, with the Vietnam-based American Justin Mott capturing the top prize in the single image category, Extraordinary. There were two winners in the beginner’s category En Route – Merissa Quek (Singapore) and Stuart Draper (UK), while James Morgan (UK) repeated his 2012 success in the short film category Travel Shorts by finishing on top in 2013.

The awards are judged by a hugely respected international panel of imaging experts, which includes photographers Eamonn McCabe, Nick Meers and Chris Weston, the editor of FOTO magazin (Germany) and the photography director of Condé Nast Traveller. The winning images and films can be seen on www.tpoty.com and will be displayed at a major exhibition at London’s Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) from July 11th – August 17th 2014. The exhibition there in 2013 attracted almost 50,000 visitors. 

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS AND PRIZES

The theme for Young Travel Photographer of the Year 2013 was ‘Crowded Planet’ and Jonathan Rystrøm’s experiments with movement while documenting street scenes in Dubrovnik caught the eye of the judges and won him a new Fujifilm X20 plus £250 and a personalised Plastic Sandwich leather portfolio book or iFolio. Patria Prasaysa’s close-up images of ants and Chase Guttman’s bustling scenes of everything from pillow fights to a mass gathering of Santas have won them each a Fujifilm FinePix XP60 camera. 18 year old Jovian Salak (UK) and 12 year old Myriam Deckmyn (Belgium) were the Runners-Up in their respective age groups, for Jovian’s colourful depiction of a festival in Nepal and Myriam’s excellent B&W shots of wildebeest in Tanzania.  

Jino Lee’s stunning images of fishermen on a lake in China won ‘Monochromal’. This category was inspired by Yosemite and Ansel Adams, and Jino will enjoy an eight-day holiday exploring the Northern California Triangle. Organised by the Yosemite/Mariposa Co. Tourism Bureau, this takes him to San Francisco, Sonoma County and Adams’ beloved Yosemite National Park, where Jino will visit the Ansel Adams Gallery, join an ‘in the footsteps of Ansel Adams’ photography class and be given a private viewing of Adams’ original photographs.  Emmanuel Coupe (France) was Runner-Up for his glorious images of Iceland, and will receive a Plastic Sandwich leather portfolio book or iFolio, as will the Runners-up in the other two portfolio categories. The Italian photographer Beniamino Pisati was Highly Commended for a lovely portfolio depicting Bitto cheese making in Italy, while his fellow Italian, Roberto Nistri, was Commended for his images of the Pokot tribe in Kenya. 

Gavin Gough receives a magnificent Fujifilm X-Pro1 kit, complete with revolutionary X-Pro1 body, premium leather camera case and three lenses, for taking top honours in the Vanishing & Emerging Cultures category with his colourful images of a skateboarding club in India. Simon Morris (UK) was Runner-Up for his intriguing portfolio showing the eagle hunters of Mongolia, who treat their golden eagles like members of the family. The Australian photographer Jason Edwards’ images of camel racing in Oman showed how a traditional cultural entertainment has evolved with the introduction of robot jockeys, while 2007 overall winner Cat Vinton (UK) was Commended for her intimate images of sea gypsies on the Andaman Sea, as was Australian David Lazar for his vibrant and engaging portraits of the inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. 

Two entrants shared top honours, and will split the £1,000 prize, in Wild Stories – and with two very different portfolios. The Dutch photographer Jasper Doest’s beautiful, tranquil images of macaques in Japan contrast vividly with Norwegian photographer Johnny Haglund’s gritty depiction of a family of alligator hunters in America. Runner-Up Ed Hetheringon (USA) presented a striking and at times gory portfolio showing lionesses hunting in Botswana – a stark contrast to the serenity of Italian photographer Barbara Dall’Angelo’s Highly Commended portfolio of trees and flowers through the seasons. Tim Taylor (UK) was Commended for his evocative images of the Falkland Islands, as was Satpal Singh (India), for his incredible, close-up shots of weaver ants.

Justin Mott will join cazenove+loyd on an Inspired Journey in Morocco's High Atlas Mountains and the walled city of Marrakech for his success in Extraordinary, the One Shot category, with his image of an elephant and a girl in a pool in Thailand. Tim Taylor and Jason Edwards were joint Runners-Up in this category, Tim for his moon and mountainscape image shot in the French Alps, and Jason for his deeply moving photograph of the charred remains of an elephant in Botswana. They each win a Sandstorm travel bag from cazenove + loyd. The Spanish photographer David Oliete was Highly Commended for his colourful aerial view of a ‘human tower’ in Catalonia, while Nicolas Lotos (Greece), Gerard Baeck (Austria) and David Lazar were all Commended; Nicolas for his brooding image of a leopard in a tree, Gerard for his superb photograph of lightning striking in the Grand Canyon, and David for his charming image of a tiny lion cub alongside two watchful lionesses.

New York was the city of choice for the winner and Runner-Up in the New Talent category ‘Metropolis’, though captured in very different ways. British medical student Tom Pepper’s prize is a package of tuition and mentoring from Photo Iconic, including a very special day with award-winning news, sports photographer and former Guardian picture editor, Eamonn McCabe. He will also receive the new Fujifilm FinePix X100S. Malaysian photographer Sheng Hong Tan’s series of images of passengers at Grand Central Station secured him the Runner-Up position, and a prize of a Plastic Sandwich portfolio book or iFolio. Lewis Phillips (UK) was Highly Commended for his portrait of London’s Brick Lane, while former Young TPOTY prizewinner Felicia Simion (Romania) was Commended for her black and white images of Craiova.

The Judges’ awards for Best Single Image in the portfolio categories went to Peter Downing (UK) for his kingfisher shot in Wild Stories, Emmanuel Coupe for his powerful image of Skógafoss waterfall in Monochromal and Roberto Nistri for his beautifully toned photograph of the Kumbh Mela in Vanishing & Emerging Cultures. They will each receive a 24” exhibition print of their winning entry from Genesis Digital, together with a print of one of the fascinating historic images from the archive of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

In Travel Shorts, the HD video category, entrants were challenged to create an up to three-minute film covering any aspect of travel. James Morgan took top honours for the second year running, this time for telling the story of female wrestlers in Bolivia, and wins the new Fujifilm FinePix HS50EXR. Rufus Blackwell (UK) was Runner-Up with his clever film showing an entire Namibian safari holiday in three minutes, while Colin Ruggiero (USA) was Highly Commended for a stunning film set in the Bahamas. Finally, James Morgan (again!) was Commended for his second short film, shot on the eastern Indonesian island of Sumba.

First Shot – theme En Route - is the beginners’ single image category. Stuart Draper’s clever image shot on an iPhone 5 in Rio de Janeiro held the judges’ attention, as did Merissa Quek’s energetic photograph of pigeons flocking around a grain seller in Jaipur. The two winners will each be given a place a Photo Iconic photography course, plus a FinePix XP60 camera. Runner-Up in this category was Matthew Coomber (UK) for his lovely image taken from a train in Sri Lanka, while Bulgarian Irina Niculicea was Commended for her serene photograph from Florence.

Photo: Timothy Allen, Travel Photographer of the Year 2013

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