On March 18, 2014, the Sony-sponsored World Photography Awards announced the names of the winning amateur photographers. Among them was Dutch photographer Gert van den Bosch, selected from 70,000 entries as the winner of the Open Nature & Wildlife category. Photographer Theo de Witte won the Netherlands National Award.
This Dutch success was exceptional not only because of the number of entries in the competition, but also because both photographers were passionate amateurs who submitted outstanding work.
The photographers received a professional Sony a6000 camera, and Gert van den Bosch would also compete for an additional cash prize of $5,000.
The professional finalists would compete for the Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year title and the Iris d’Or, as well as $25,000 and professional Sony camera equipment.
All nominated photographs were scheduled to be shown at Somerset House in London from May 1 through 18 as part of the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition. The annual winners were to be announced on April 30.
Gert van den Bosch won with his image The Cold Pony. The photograph was taken with a Sony A500 camera. Van den Bosch said: “It was very cold that day, and I got out of my car for a quick shot in the snow. The paths were slippery, and I walked through the cold snow to reach the pony. When I got there, I realized I had brought the wrong lens for the effect I wanted. So I went back to the car and changed lenses.”
The Other 9 Open Competition Winners
• Architecture – Holger Schmidtke, Germany
• Arts and Culture – Valerie Prudon, Australia
• Enhanced – Kylli Sparre, Estonia
• Low Light - Vlad Eftenie, Romania
• Panoramic – Ivan Pedretti, Italy
• People - Arup Ghosh, India
• Smile - Alpay Erdem, Turkey
• Split Second - Hairul Azizi Harun, Malaysia
• Travel – Chen Li, China
On the same day, the World Photography Organisation also announced the winners of the Youth categories and the other 37 National Awards. To view all the winning images, visit www.worldphoto.org.
