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... 

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Me,

                                                                

 The Hot Shoe Anthologist

 

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*).

I mentioned in my last post that during the last kick-off event, we were handed a booklet that contains the challenges that we are to do. There are basically four (4) challenges that we must do for the whole course of the program. The first challenge that was given to us was, to utilize the camera's 12 frames per second function to capture the motion of fast moving object in each frame. After achieving such photos, we will then merge the 12 frames into one single frame showing the flow of motion.

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.

Last year, Sony MEA (Middle East and Africa) came up with a challenge for aspiring photographers both in professional and amateur category to showcase their ability and creativity by using the latest photographic equipment of Sony. A selection was made to draw out the 10 best participants, 5 for each category among thousands of hopefuls which entered the challenge. The selected amateur participants will receive the NEX-7 while the Pros received the new Sony Alpha A77 to be used during the competition.