I got the chance to reach out to the organizer of this year's Photoworld 2013 and they gave me an insight of some of the exhibitors that is joining the event. The very latest in photography and imaging – some of the brands you’ll see at PhotoWorld…

Last night, the most anticipated, world's richest international photography contest had officially named the winners for the year 2013. The Hamdan International Photography Award ceremony was held at grounds of the Gate building at Dubai International Financial Center. 

The event was well attended and each of the registered attendees got to take home a souvenir from the ceremony which was a Fujifilm 210 Instax camera -- keeping the photography concept at bay, which I believe was really smart. The event was of course graced by it's patron His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohhamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and other high ranking officials of the U.A.E.

So without further ado here are the winners for each category:

GENERAL

 Guangfei Ji from China

3rd International Winner in General Category 

Photo courtesy of HIPA.

Boris Zulj from Croatia

2nd International Winner in General Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Klaus-peter Selzer from Germany

1st International Winner in General Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA 

Mohamed AlSuwaidi from United Arab Emirates

3rd Emirati Winner in General Category

Mansoor AlMannai from United Arab Emirates 

2nd Emirati Winner in General Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Abdul Rab Sawad from United Arab Emirates

1st Emirati Winner in General Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

EMIRATES CATEGORY

Adeeb Alani from Iraq 

3rd Winner in Emirates Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Michel Zoghzoghi from Lebanon

2nd winner in Emirates category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Helmut Wachtarczyk from Germany

1st Winner in Emirates category

Photo courtesy of HIPA 

BLACK and WHITE CATEGORY

Le Duy Hoang from Vietnam

3rd Winner in Black & White Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Edwin Djuanda from Indonesia

2nd Winner in Black & White Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Chan Kwok Hung from Hong Kong

1st Winner in Black & White Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

BEAUTY OF LIGHT

Xiaoping Ling from China

3rd International Winner in Beauty of Light Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Oscar Bjarnason from Iceland

2nd International Winner in Beauty of Light Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Jingsheng Nie from China

1st International Winner in Beauty of light Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA 

Alaaa AlMuttawa from United Arab Emirates

3rd Emirati Winner in Beauty of Light Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Omar AlZaabi from United Arab Emirates

2nd Emirati Winner in Beauty of Light Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Abdulaziz bin ali from United Arab Emirates

1st Emirati Winner in Beauty of Light Category

Photo courtesy of HIPA

 Osama Al ZUbaidi from United Arab Emirates

Grand Prize Winner of 2nd Season Beauty of Light 

Photo courtesy of HIPA

Congratulations to all the winners! It was a we'll deserved victory for all of you. This is another feather in the cap for the HIPA team--a job well done indeed. 

As the HIPA 2013 has finished, it is now time to anticipate for the HIPA 2014 with it's theme "Creating the Future". So,fellow photographers....time to get those thinking caps on! :)

To view the complete gallery of the winning photos, please visit HIPA's Facebook account HERE.

I you had missed the event here is the official video of the ceremony: HIPA Award Ceremony 2013

Thanks for your time... 

Feel free to leave a comment if you like or not liked this post

Me,

                                                                

 The Hot Shoe Anthologist

 

The thrill is almost over and 4 days from now a grand winner of the Hamdan International Photography Award (HIPA) is going to be declared and will take home a stash of $120,000. Even though only on their second year, HIPA has already propelled their rank as the leading international photography awards topping others for the biggest prize in a photo competition.

It’s been more than a week now since GPP opened up for its GPP week 2013. I know this was a late run but I was hooked up in watching several TV series that I lost track of time and have left off caressing the keyboard of my laptop. Then it came to my senses that I have to cut my TV series addiction and focus again on the one thing I love which is Photography!

Two days from now the most anticipated yearly photography event will again open its doors to all aspiring and professional photographers. The Gulf Photo Plus Week is the biggest event in photography here in the Middle East, and will run from 1^st to 8^th of March. It will be a week with loads of learning and interaction with the  best international photographers at present time.

It is a gloomy afternoon in Dubai, not the typical weather that you’ll see the whole year. Dark clouds hover over the whole city that seems to signify that it’s going to rain. Me and my buddy are prepared to go to the free Nikon Sensor cleaning program at Za’abeel Park diminishing the doubts that the rain might fall anytime. We access at the gate 1 of the park as it was the nearest gate from the station beside it, from there we roam around to look for the ICBC (International Characters and Brands Carnival) event.

I am a self confess 500px fan and I see to it that I spend most my day looking into jaw dropping photos to keep my inspiration up high. In this site I came to stumble great images of Neil Kremer, Glyn Dewis, Joel Grimes and Dean Bradshaw, their works are composites or back in the days  called photo montages. If you guys doesn't have a clue what is it, to briefly explain it is an image composed of 2 or more images blended to make a single one.

HIPA (Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award) one of the most prestigious photography competition in the world had recently conducted free photography workshops for photography enthusiast. The workshops lasted for 3 days and were facilitated by well re-known photographers like Martin Grahame-Dunn, Joseph Smith and Tom Ang. 

 

I always admire the people of U.A.E (United Arab Emirates)every time they will celebrate their national day as the spirit of patriotismis very high and overwhelming. The preparation is a week before the event whereyou can immediately see the streets decorated in so many ways. The residentialhouses are decorated with flags which hung’s on the rafters, flaglets are givento everyone at the malls and the towering icon of UAE, the Burj Khalifa emitsthe colors of the flag through their lights from its base up to the tip, simplya sign of unity and respect to their leaders and country.



I came up with an idea of doing a street shoot as my way ofa tribute in celebrating the 41^st National Day as an expat here inU.A.E. We dressed up accordingly to the colors of their flag and brought alongsome props to be use, went down to the streets and made a 2 cross lights strobeset up. Here are the outcomes of the shoot :)

Strobist info: 

Shot with Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f1.8D @ ISO 400 f2 1/160s
 

YN560 M @1/8 Zoom 24mm in octagonal soft box on a Manfrotto 5001B Nano Black Light Stand at camera left.
YN560 M @1/16 Zoom 70mm with 1/4 CTO gel on Manfrotto 5001B Nano Black Light Stand right



The shoot was inspired from Dustin Diaz  book "This is Strobist Info".

Thanksfor your time... 

Feel free to leave a comment if you like or not liked this post

Me,

                                                                

 TheHot Shoe Anthologist

The Sony DI Challenge II is about to end as it is now on its last stage of the challenge. This will be my final push to be Sony’s amateur photographer winner (If I got lucky), we’ll never know until the final curtain falls at the awarding ceremony. So let us go back with the entry I made because this will be my final justification for this challenge. The 4^th challenge was all about capturing a candid scene, to elaborate it a little further I need to take photos of a human subject by not knowing I’m snapping them. As I was thinking of what to capture I always remember the phrase from a mentor couple of years ago that if you capture an image it should have some story to it.

Have you ever tried renting equipments before? If not and you are here in UAE better consider it as there is an awesome deal that was being offered. Dreamcamshop a photography equipment rental shop just celebrated their 1^st year anniversary and did an incredible deal to their customers by dropping the rental fee of all their equipments for just 99 AED (26.96 USD) for the first day. 

Hey guys! I know I have been quiet the past few days and I need to share with you what was happening. Unfortunately I need to borrowed wifey’s laptop because I don’t have mine right now and had no time to write due to some workloads that needs to be finish. The last time I shared with you my thoughts on doing HDR (High Dynamic Range Images) which I can say I have been progressing from the previous research I have been doing. Some of you might be wondering why I have to the HDR thingy the hard way and there’s an option with the Sony Alpha A77 where they incorporated the feature, I just simply want to maximize the full potential of the camera and you’ll get the result out of your taste. I guess I’m doing pretty well at it and would still continue to polish things until I am satisfied. I will be updating my portfolio page with it as well.

 

A few hours from today, Photokina the world's largest trade fair for the photographic and imaging industries will again be open. This happens every two years where the biggest brands on the market will exhibits their newest products and will give the consumers an idea what the future holds for industry. Everyone in Germany right now is anticipating lots of product release coming from the likes of Leica, Canon, Nikon and Sony.

The foreign band Greenday popularize a song “September Ends”, but for the month of September 2012, came out with great news were most people doesn’t want it to just end yet. Here are the things that bedazzled us for the last few days.

12 Sept. 2012 - Sony releases the first Full Frame digital camera with the Sony RX1 along with it is the new Alpha SLT-A99 24mp Full frame DSLT (Single Lens Translucent) and lastly the NEX-6 having a SELP1650 power zoom lens.

The first challenge was thrilling as expected, most of the competitors are campaigning their work at this early stage of the contest. This is the first time we saw each others works and it's like playing an online poker game, we don't know who has a better card in hand. Adding up a spice to the competition is by gathering a give me a pixel (votes) for our entries, the viewers has their chance to choose which of the entries they feel deserves to win. So having a good friend or a campaign manager will have an advantage with type of a scheme (Grin*).

Being a finalist for the Sony DI challenge has its perks! First, you have the chance to use their flagship camera system for a month, second is your challenge output will be published and campaigned on their Facebook page (international exposure) and lastly winning the competition makes you an ambassador for Sony MEA (Middle East and Africa) until they conduct the 3rd Sony DI challenge.

I've never had the chance to give time to my blog after i have my introduction post way back March. I last wrote a post for my blog and it was surprising when I saw that I got  that my blog post got 44 hits! Ha!. It really inspired me more to pursue my blogging and share what happened on my absence for the last months of absence. I'm currently doing shoots to start my portfolio this 2012 and for my life partner, Cookie, as well for her makeup & beauty blog (thesmokybluepalette.blogspot.com),you'll see some of the photos here that's the same ones posted on her page.