Stunning panoramic image of burnt out forest wins Landscape Photographer of the Year 2023
The winners of Landscape Photographer of the Year 2023 have just been announced. Now in its 16th year, the awards recognize the most beautiful landscapes from across the UK, and with an impressive £10,000 (US$12,140) up for grabs for the overall winner, it’s become a competition that every dedicated landscape photographer should enter.
The Overall winner, and winner of the Change in the Landscape category,y is Mik Dogherty, for his image titled ‘After The Fire‘.
“After a large heath fire near Beaulieu in the New Forest National Park, I'd recognized that to get a worthwhile picture, I would need a misty morning to hide the large oil refinery complex that sits on the edge of Southampton Water,” recalls Dogherty.
“The refinery would be very visible above the tree line in the background, as it is from many parts of the New Forest (much like the cement works in the Peak District). Eventually that morning came and to add to the morning was a great sunrise.
“Some months later and most of these burnt remnants of gorse bushes and the lone tree have now gone (mostly devoured by the New Forest Ponies and cattle) so this picture no longer exists and will not be repeated, but the regeneration has begun.”
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Celebrating the beauty of the British landscape, the Landscape Photographer of the Year competition has become a fixture in the photography calendar since being launched by the leading international landscape photographer Charlie Waite in 2007.
“This year, Landscape Photographer of the Year has embraced the wide diversity of landscape photography by reaching out to those practising creative expressionism, environmental comment and aerial drone photography, while also keeping in touch with our hugely supportive community across the world,” Waite said.
“The number of both young and female photographers entering this year has risen again, and we can look to the future with an inspired heart and a continually growing passion for our photography.”
The Young Landscape Photographer of the Year prize of £1,000 ($1,210) was awarded to Aaron Northwood for an image taken near where he lives in Shropshire. The photo is titled ‘The Wishing Tree’ (above), and Northwood explains how he captured it:
“Another day of work meant a day out with the camera up the local lanes. I saw this old oak on the horizon but the composition looked messy with a hedge and fence in the bottom of the scene.
“To get around this problem I lay the camera in some snow on an old stump. I moved the camera so the bottom on the lens was hidden in the snow hiding the messy foreground. I didn't realise how well this worked until I got back, the snow looking like fog below the tree.”
Enjoy the LPOTY 2023 category winners
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