Azerbaijani photographer wins international award

Kamal Ali

An international competition designed to encourage young photographers in the Eastern Partnership was held on Facebook in a reality show format. The contest was held in the framework of the project "Attention, smile ! " funded by the European Union. For two months, contestants from six countries competed with each other in the ability to promptly lift interesting photos on a given topic , as well as to enlist the support of as many fans, including their rivals.

In three rounds of the competition as jury members were Facebook, and in the final round , with the theme "Change ", a decisive voting right was given by the contestants, which was a complete surprise for them and radically changed the balance of power. After four rounds there were discovered six winners - one from each participating country. Grand Prix - Camera Canon 6D from the Center of Cultural Events of the Tbilisi City Hall - goes to Mindia Charkseliani from Georgia. The winner from Armenia Arman Harutyunyan, who lost Charkseliani with minimum disruption, becomes the owner of a small personal site, which will be developed by GDesign (Armenia) . Roman Rybalev from Moldova will receive a tripod and camera bag from VelbonCX of GVN (Armenia), and Rashad Mehdiyev from Azerbaijan will be rewarded with a portable video camera and two walkie-talkies from Midland Company Skylink (Georgia) . Andrew Pogrebnoi who won the highest score among the Ukrainian participants will be awarded a tripod Manfrotto from the Azerbaijan Photographers Association, and the winner from Belarus Ruslan Gluschenko will receive a photo backpack Lowepro from Amadeus Travel Lufthansa City Center (Moldova) .

And 15 participants from each of the Eastern Partnership members will receive certificates for free training on the pilot course online photo school , which will open in March of this year on http://photo-school.eu. The feature of the new online photo school will be the flexibility and freedom of choice and access to copyrighted training materials developed by experts from six countries. Upon graduation, the students will receive a single certificate confirmed by the associations of photographers from all countries of the Eastern Partnership .

According to the opinion of many participants, Photoman - 2013 was a great opportunity to meet with like-minded people from other countries, establish creative contacts and even make new friends. Pending the results, the contestants discussed photographs of each other, sharing secrets of their photo skills, telling jokes and even composing a poem together, and the participant from Belarus Ruslan Glushchenko was unanimously recognized as the "Soul of Photoman" for the greatest openness and desire to unite all participants. Ruslan will receive a special prize from UP Riftur (Belarus): a creative weekend in one of the national parks of Belarus and individual master class on landscape photography and wildlife photography from the chairman of the NGO Photo Art Sergei Plytkevich.

The ceremonial awarding of the Georgian winners of Photoman - 2013 will take place at Club Hookah Lounge (Tbilisi) on February 4, and the awarding of the winners in Belarus will be held on February 14 in the Mikhail Savitsky Gallery (Minsk ) during the exhibition Steps BOO Photoart. In Armenia, Azerbaijan , Ukraine and Moldova, the date and place of ceremony will be communicated as soon as possible .

The competitive works of all participants on the theme My World (Step 1), New Year's Trouble (Step 2), The Street Is Full of Surprises (Step 3), Changes (Step 4) can be found here: https:/ / apps.facebook.com / photomann, Chairman of the Association of photographers of AR Mirnaib Hasanoglu.

Reference: The project " WARNING , Smile ! (SAY CHEESE!) FAMILY ALBUM EASTERN PARTNERSHIP. Development opportunities, building partnerships and promoting the Eastern Partnership thematic photos is implemented within the framework of the Eastern Partnership Culture, which is funded by the European Union.

ANN.Az