Chris Coe

0:41 Good evening everyone what a fabulous audience what a good turnout it's great to see you all here I'm a professional photographer which is how I got into starting the travel photographer of the year awards and I'm also a fairly tenacious person it started with a day of frustration. Basically in london going around trying to get my work into publications magazines and meeting picture editor after picture editor who was only interested in the bog standard really predictable pictures of travel places destinations and people.

1:20 So I decided to do something about it and what I decided to do was to create a showcase for photography for travel photography and for travel photographers and that's how the awards were born that was back in 2002 so we're now running the 12th award we launched in february in that focus which is a photographic show in in birmingham it's now sadly finished and it was very difficult because we at the time.

1:49 There weren't very many photography competitions at all and even fewer travel ones and as an independent starting up we had no kudos so it was very difficult to get publicity for what we were doing we did it ourselves and when I talk about we it's two of us it's been two of us all along even though the awards now have a huge presence we did this through the internet and in the first year we got entries from 34 different countries around the world from the point we got our first winners of which this is one the media sat up and started taking notice of us now since then it's grown and grown and grown the next obstacle was professionals can't compete against amateurs the amateurs don't stand a chance so in 2004 our first amateur winner completely dispelled that myth and it is a myth because there are a lot of very good amateur photographers out there one of the issues that we had to overcome from the very beginning is travel photography is pretty pictures this is one of the winners from the last awards this is a family business in the states in the in the south and they are alligator hunters and this is the young child actually learning the business so it's very important to understand that for travel photography is a very broad spectrum in the second year this was one of the winning pictures which we announced is part of a portfolio which we announced in december it was taken in bam in iran now I don't know if any of you remember bam but it was leveled by an earthquake just one month after this picture was won in the awards and it shows the poignancy with which images can often images can often have and don't unless not apparent at the time.

3:40 This is another one this lady we don't know if she's alive now she was on the andaman islands when the tsunami struck and again this was two months after the picture was entered into the awards and this one is particularly harrowing anyone who's recognized it's ground zero very poignant picture but again it's travel photography now the stories behind the pictures are also very important and they fascinate people at our exhibitions this picture was taken on film and you can't see it on this projection.

4:14 But in the distance there's a sandstorm coming that sandstorm wrecked the photographer's camera and filled it with sand this was one of six frames that managed they managed to rescue from it again part of one of the winning images in the first year so exhibitions we designed a soap case so how do we get the pictures out there initially we exhibited through trade shows travel shows photography shows and in 2005 we had our first outdoor exhibition at the london eye this really put us on the map we've gone on since then to exhibit at our new home which is the royal geographical society in london the exhibition is on there at the moment it runs until the 17th of august it's indoors and outdoors and this week we're starting some enchanted evenings so we're inviting people along to a private view with judges there to talk about it on this friday and then the following two wednesdays we get massive audiences for these exhibitions now 48 000 people came last year for our five week exhibition we're aiming to get more than that for the coming one now we one of the things we set out to do with the awards was to create opportunities for photographers for young photographers for people who are aspiring to get into the profession.

5:34 So there are special categories for both this is was taken at the goodwood festival of speed in 2004 I think it was the photographer was eight years old at the time he was a young winner of the awards this picture through our pest coverage was spotted by ferrari he was invited along for a track testing day and to photograph the cars at bran's hatch his father was very jealous because he was a photographer too. And this image was one that won a new talent award for young photographers emerging talent it won it two several years ago and one of the judges is a leading stock figure in the states and he said he could sell this image around the world without any problems whatsoever so again another young photographer with a good career in photography this picture has a lovely story to it again a young photographer 16 years at the time when she won an australian photographer our press coverage is very extensive and this was seen by a central london ad agency who was representing a major aerospace manufacturer they approached us about the picture and when we get approaches we either put them through to the photographer or we ask them if they'd like us to handle it as a 16 year old she didn't know how to go about selling the picture so she asked us to do it we negotiated a five figure sum for her which paid for her entire college education and a new camera system and the company came back the next year and licensed it again so those opportunities are really fantastic for the young photographers and I really love the work of the young photographers they're so creative right in 2007 we had a prize to photograph the dalai lama and the winner was a london-based photographer called kat vinton the story to this I think I've got time to tell it was that the sponsor who had provided this prize then went into liquidation and they refused to help me to make it happen took four years and three months and a lot of contacts with the dalai lama's office and a lot of other people out in dharamshala in india but kat went out there in february of last year with me.

7:54 And we photographed his holiness which was the most amazing experience we've also worked with charities elephant family I don't know if those of you remember the sculpture elephants around town a couple of years back we had a prize for one of the photographers who photographed to photograph wild stories and this is the winner stuart dunn part of his prize was to go out to india and photograph the project for the elephant family which was has helped them with their has helped them with their promotion. Now in 2012 to reflect the changes in canberra's this is one of the first winners it's a time lapse had 3 200 images made up this one minutes of footage it was taken by a made by a photographer as it was hosted on vimeo it was picked up by vimeo became the editor's choice then went all the way around again so it's fabulous exposure to be had from getting involved with something like this so question I'm I'm asked often what's travel photography well it's people it's intimate moments hopefully with a bit of humor humor something photographers often find hard to capture it's looking at things from a different perspective it's a landscape and the beautiful planet that we live on abstracts movement adventure and just share beautiful images it's about documenting the world that we live in not all of its it's pleasant some of it's hopefully funny and there are moments of just pure joy I was asked before I did this talk what's your favorite pictures now as you can imagine I see something like fifteen twenty thousand images every year. And I've done that for twelve years.

10:38 So there's a lot of possibilities to choose that I pulled out three I could have pulled out three this one I I particularly love loved enough to actually buy it from the photographer by a print of it it's a minky whale just under the surface of the ocean I think it's just a majestic picture this one doesn't work. So well on the projection here.

10:58 But it's a very beautiful elegant picture of cranes and this is probably my favorite because it's just so joyful wonderful wonderful picture now we're at the stage now with our exhibitions where they get great prominence we get press coverage all around the world.

11:16 So we're going to start to tour them next year and our first tour which we've just agreed so you're the first to hear this is we'll be going to belfast for the next three years.

11:25 And I'll be starting next year when the tall ships race is on this year's current exhibition was won by timothy allen timothy was the photographer that did the stills for the human planet series and he won it with this is one of the portfolios of images that he won it with this is a particular favorite of mine it was a portfolio of four images of the the monkeys the macaques in japan and the most beautiful thing about it is that all the pictures were taken with the monkey's eyes shut it was a really bold thing for the photographer to do but a beautiful set of images another one of the images from the current exhibition which is proving very popular we find photographers are very poor at putting together portfolios of images so a few years back we introduced a best single image in a portfolio category to allow us to pull out great images from portfolios that were never going to be winners this was one from the current year and just to show you the variety here's another one I think you can see that travel photography is really diverse and it's only really limited by your imagination it's anything you do when you travel but each year we have theme categories and the theme categories allow us to to change it and keep it fresh and vibrant each year around it's open at the moment for entries you've got until the 1st of october if you want to get involved it's a great thing to be part of and it's a real community this is another one of the images from this year as a stunning picture we've had some wonderful wildlife images entered last year so just to finish off a few facts behind what we do it's now one of the biggest photography awards in the world.

13:09 But we've always focused on it being a community and we work very hard to stay in touch with the photographers that that get involved with the awards whether they're seasoned professionals or complete beginners the exhibition going on tour is going to open up this showcase all over the place and we hope to announce about five different venues in the next well probably the next two months we'll we'll finalize them we've also put together a collection of the very best pictures which we invite photographers to put their work into this is providing a revenue stream for photographers they're finding it very tough at the moment and we are selling prints we are selling cards books you can have a look at these later on if you like we publish the books ourselves a range of different cards and the photographers all earn royalties and we pay because I'm a photographer myself we pay about 10 times the royalty of any other photography competition the website gets huge traffic and the potential is there for huge exposure for the photographers that get involved the winner from canada in 2008 told us that he his web traffic went up tenfold overnight when he was announced as the winner all his courses booked out and he was getting commissions from around the world the visibility is huge I don't know whether you saw it but a few weeks back couple of weeks back it was the main story on the mail online which is the biggest website in the world.

14:37 And it was on the main page not just the travel section it was there for half a day we have a slideshow that goes out on the bbc that gets about 650 000 unique visitors in the first 24 hours last year it was the third most viewed slideshow behind the royal wedding and the queen's jubilee neither of which are happening this year.

15:00 So we're aiming for top spot the media coverage is fantastic we run a series of courses and photo trips and working with other photographers we're just about to announce one to go and photograph snow leopards in the himalayas in 2016.

15:17 And if you're a photographer it's a great way to get your work out there we we publicize the photographers who haven't won as well as the ones that have and if you're not a photographer the exhibition is something you'll thoroughly enjoy most of our visitors stay at least an hour and some day of the day it's it's indoors and outdoors and it's a just a wonderful opportunity to meet there is so much I could have talked about tonight all the ins and outs and all the intricacies of putting together an award what you see is a fraction of the story that makes that all happen and there are lots of people who have their input into it.

15:56 But I I hope you'll agree from just a few snapshot of the pictures I've shown you that. There are some great images out there and photographers are now getting their work seen around the world which can't be a bad thing thank you very much