Travel Photographer Asia Invalidates 2016 Original Winner

Photo © Alex Varani - All Rights Reserved

Travel Photographer Asia and its judges have taken the difficult, but unavoidable, decision to revoke its 2016 winning photograph of Malaysian photographer Yen Sin Won, and replace it with the above photograph by Alex Varani of Italy.

The new winning photograph was originally first runner-up, and with the said elimination is now the overall winner of Travel Photographer 2016 contest. It is of Indonesian fishermen battling a shark near Cenderawasih Bay. 

The updated line-up of the winners is here.

Although Yen Sin Won's monochromatic photograph (see my previous post to view it) was compelling enough to garner the admiration of the jury, it came to the attention of the judges when asking for and viewing the RAW version that it violated the rules and spirit of the contest regarding post processing restrictions on submitted images. 

As I posted earlier, Travel Photographer Asia is much more than a photographic contest. It is also a travel photography festival consisting of photo talks, an exhibition and photography master class & workshops for the professional and amateur photographer.

I shall join photography luminaries Ms Huang Wen, Mr. Che' Ahmad Azhar, Dr. Shahidul Alam and Mr. Vignes Balasingam in giving photo talks during the festival. My photo talk will focus on travel photography, and I'll touch upon its challenges and rewards, how to approach people and build trust, how to take the right photos for an article, how to build up a story with photos, and how to brand yourself. I will share how I started as a travel photographer, how I built my travel photo workshops business from scratch and how I go about developing personal projects.