Ireland has won the overall FIAP (International Federation of Photographic Art) colour biennial, which took place in Turkey in May, staving off stiff competition from Germany (2nd place) and Spain (3rd place).
Ireland was represented by photographers from across the country, whose images were selected by the Irish Photographic Federation to compete against the best in the world. The Irish entry was made up of 10 images from members of camera clubs in Dundalk, Mallow, and Dublin.
Ireland has punched above its weight in international competitions hosted by FIAP to date. This is Ireland’s second major win this year, having already taken the top prize in the FIAP black and white biennial earlier this year.
Irish camera clubs and societies have also ranked highly in other FIAP events, such as the 2011 FIAP World Cup, where Dundalk Photographic Society took second place and Celbridge Camera Club ranked in the top 10 grouping.
Building on that success, Irish photographers have now raised the bar even further to take both the top colour and monochrome biennial prizes this year.
There was also cause for celebration for two of the participating Irish photographers who each took home FIAP medals for their images: Brian Hopper from Dundalk Photographic Society was awarded a FIAP Gold Medal for his image ‘Boat at Bellurgan Point’ and John Kent from Dublin Camera Club was awarded a FIAP Bronze Medal for his image ‘Walking the Dog’.
Thank you to all members who support the Themes in the Printed and Project Competition, without the support of entrants into PPI, the IPF would be unable to create such an impressive panel.
Also, huge thank you to Denis Whelan who co-ordinated the panel selection.
List of participating photographers in Ireland’s panel in the 24th FIAP colour biennial:
| 1 | Hopper | Brian |
Boat at Bellurgan Point |
| 2 | Coakley | Brid |
Beal Bann |
| 3 | Martin | David |
Dunluce |
| 4 | Kent | John |
Walking the Dog |
| 5 | O’Shaughnessy | Gabriel |
Sunbeam AM |
| 6 | De Bhal | Ciaran |
Dingle at Dusk |
| 7 | O’Donoghue | Pat |
The Rock |
| 8 | Hooton | John |
Fisherman |
| 9 | Magner | Mary |
Sea Swirl |
| 10 | O’Callaghan | Rodney |
Dingle Streaks |
Ireland’s Colour Panel
What a result ! Congratulations to everyone involved. It’s very refreshing to see a panel of images chosen which represents current trends in photography in Ireland. We succeed when we play to our own strengths. There are many, many photographers involved in landscapes and seascapes (many at the top of their game) so we should keep the ball rolling and get more photographers involved.
I have only named two subjects/genres here – we need to look around at what genres other photographers are covering and choose panels which represent their work too. Many Irish photographers are having fabulous success in international salons, but because of subject choice, never see their work being used in biennial panels.
This in no way takes from our recent success and, again, congratulations to all involved.
Congratulations on the wonderful win. It’s some achievement to win such an award. The IPF certainly knows how to go about winning the Biennial competitions.
I guess there are big trends in photography and you have to be ahead of the game to win these competitions and be setting the trend.
The only danger I see is that in all competitions diversity is not being encouraged. The smoky seascapes were wonderful when I first saw them but I think I’m getting saturated by them. They are starting to border on not being photographs at all but abstract pictures. I am also getting saturated on eastern European village portraits and staged portraits.
When I go to competitions I see wonderful photos by great photographers which are almost ignored because they are not fitting into the current winning trend. I think judges treat them as “seen them all before”. At this stage it would be refreshing to see a photograph win that looks like how it would look like if you were standing there yourself.
I too don’t want to take away from the fantastic success, it is an amazing achievement.
Congratulations on the wonderful win. I would tend to agree with the comment posted by Fergal O`Callaghan on 26th. June 2012. My one concern is the amount of manipulation in some images i:e ” “photoshop” for the want of a better way of putting it. I think it is time to stand back and take a look at where photography is going. At the moment there is a fine thread between photography and graphic design and I think that the photographic image is losing out. To quote Henri Cartier-Bresson. “The photograph itself doesn’t interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.” The panel above is an excellent panel and deserving of it`s award but to me it did not capture the reality of the images put before the camera.