Have you ever dreamed of seeing your travel photos published on the cover of Lonely Planet?  Well now’s your chance…

Lonely Planet and Pikeo are inviting photographers to submit their most unique and inspiring pictures of London, Paris, Barcelona and Istanbul. 

Four winning shots will be chosen for the cover of Lonely Planet’s ‘Encounter’ guides to each city. The panel of judges consists of travel photography experts including representatives from the Association of British Photographers and Lonely Planet Images.

The winners of each cover will also receive a free trip to India, Russia, Morocco or Kenya courtesy of Intrepid Travel. In addition, twelve runners-up will receive prizes, as will a small selection of highly commended entries.

The winning images, plus Lonely Planet and Pikeo’s favourite shots, will be launched and showcased at a gallery exhibition in London when the guides go on sale next year.

The competition is open to those in the UK, France, Spain, USA and Canada and entries close on September 8, 2008.

Lonely Planet and Pikeo tips for a winning image:
- Images must be taken from a street perspective
- Use a reportage/documentary style
- Make the viewer feel they are actually there
- Have a central focal point
- Ensure composition is bold and colours are rich
- Avoid things looking staged by showing locals going about their everyday life
- Use iconic sights or architecture in an everyday context
- Always include people within your shots

Competition Link / Set Reminder

Our search for the Photographer of the Year is underway. Be part of this massive event – there are ten great categories and a top prize of £15,000 up for grabs!

The Digital Camera Photographer of the Year competition is the leading contest for anyone with a passion for digital photography and is open to both amateur and professional photographers of any nationality. Its aim is to reveal the most inspirational and imaginative photographers from around the globe. Last year, the competition attracted more than 81,000 entries from around the world. The competition is organised by the UK’s fastest-growing photography title, Digital Camera – the magazine for today’s photographer.

There are ten categories to choose from and you may choose to enter just one or all ten – and you can enter up to five photos in each of these categories. The submission and voting process is web-based so you’ll be able to track the progress of your pictures through this competition website.

The competition is open for entries until the end of September, when the category winners and overall winner will be selected by a panel of judges. The overall winner will get the coveted £15,000 main prize and be declared Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2008.

Competition Categories
Urban
Hidden Britain
Action & Movement
Animals
Documentary
Dusk to Dawn
Landscapes
People & Portraits
Black & White
Creative Vision

The Prizes

The Digital Camera Photographer of the Year competition is a great opportunity to showcase your best images, as well as giving you the chance to show your appreciation for and comment on the work of other photographers. Naturally, there are rewards for the winners…

The Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2008
The title of Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2008 will be given to the photographer who is judged to have taken the most outstanding and memorable picture entered in the competition. The winning photographer will receive an incredible £15,000.

Category winners
You can enter up to five digital images in each of the ten categories. The prizes for each category are as follows:

1st: £1,000 plus a year’s free subscription to Digital Camera magazine and a year’s free membership to the Royal Photographic Society

2nd: £350 plus a year’s free subscription to Digital Camera magazine

3rd: £150 plus a year’s free subscription to Digital Camera magazine

All categories close 30th September 2008

Competition Link / Set Reminder

The focus of this year’s expanded competition is travel with winners sharing more than $70,000 worth of prizes from major sponsors including Abercrombie & Kent, Tarraleah Lodge, Nikon, SanDisk, AsukaBook, Asus and Vibe hotels. As well as a bigger prize pool, we’ve extended the opportunities for photographers – both professional and amateur – to be recognised for their exceptional work.

Finalists in all categories will also be part of an end of year winners’ exhibition with photos and video presented by Pixel Perfect Prolab. A selection of the winners’ images and stories will feature in the Australian Traveller magazine, be displayed in the stunning RovingEye coffeetable book by Asukabook and have the opportunity to be represented by RovingEye.

Winners this year will vie for two magnificent experiences from Abercrombie & Kent and Tarraleah Lodge in Tasmania. The winner of the newly introduced Single Shot category will take part in a trip-of-a-lifetime with A&Ks Turtle Rescue program, a seven day 5-star experience in Queensland’s Cape York region. The Lodge at Tarraleah has just recently been voted one of the 65 top new resorts by Conde Nast UK. The winner of the Photo Essay category will not only take home the sensational Nikon D300 DSLR but will spend five nights, all inclusive, lapping up the luxurious surrounds set in the heart of Tasmania’s wilderness area.

RovingEye believes in encouraging new talent and supporting the industry and the search for Young Australian Photographer of the Year does just that. The overall winner will take home a Nikon D60 DSLR with an AF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6G ED II lens. The winner will choose a Vibe hotel in any Australian capital city to spend five nights shooting the urban life of the city, which will be feature in the Australian Traveller magazine. To be judged by Alan Davies, the curator of the State Library of NSW, this is the ideal opportunity to be seen and judged by the best, to fast-track a young career and to be part of this exclusive community of winners.

RovingEye’s 2008 Expose your World photo competition is setting new benchmarks in providing opportunities to profile the works of known photographers and unearthing new talent both here and around the globe.  It’s a company on the move, and it wants to take as many talented photographers, writers and filmmakers along with them for the ride! 

Photography categories:

Photo Essay
- Australian Story
- A Traveller’s Tale
- Environmental Issue

Single Shot
- People
- Place
- Event

Young Australian Photographer of the Year
- People
- Place
- Event

Entry Fees:
Photo Essay (open category). $A20.00 per entry. No limit on entries
Single shot (open category). $A20.00 per entry. No limit on entries
Young Australian Photographer of the Year (aged 21 or under). FREE. Limit 10 entries

Copyright:
Entrants retain all copyrights and other equivalent rights to entered photographs. RovingEye reserves the permanent, non-exclusive right to publish, reproduce, display, distribute, and show on screen any winning photographs on websites, in photo exhibitions, tradeshows, or any other media which is under their management for the purpose of promoting the contest.

Competition Link / Set Reminder

The campaign “Cultures on my street”
How many times have you walked down a street in your neighbourhood and wondered just how so many different people came to live together in this particular place? Everyone has a story. Now that the borders within Europe are fading, people from an even greater mix of cultures and backgrounds are coming together, mingling their voices in an ever growing dialogue of their unique stories and experiences.

The competition
As Europe grows together in its diversity, the European Commission challenges YOU to capture your vision of intercultural dialogue and share it with the world in the competition “Cultures on my street”. All European residents, regardless of age or origins, are invited to participate. It’s as easy as grabbing your camera and stepping outside the front door.

Your photo
Inspiration for the theme could be found in the fields of education, religion, migration, science, culture, minority groups or youth. And remember, there are no borders to your imagination, so feel free to explore the possibility of retouching and editing your photos, or making photo collages and montages.

Voting and winning
Everyone who visits the official competition website has the chance to cast their vote for the photo they feel best captures the idea of Intercultural Dialogue. So after you’ve submitted your photos, tell all of your friends and family to check out your work … and vote you to the top!

A jury made up of established artists, leaders on intercultural dialogue issues and representatives of the European Commission will also select three photographers, recognising the creativity and technical quality of the photos, as well as the photographers’ ability to portray the theme of intercultural dialogue. The jury will review all submissions and select the winning entries at the end of June.

The prizes
Your photos could be used in materials that will encourage people from different cultures across Europe to breakdown the barriers of communication and start a meaningful conversation. And did we mention that you could also win fabulous prizes?

As if being able to share your creative masterpieces with the world was not enough, you could also have the chance to win one of the following, fabulous prizes!

Jury selected winners
The 1st prize is a professional digital EOS 5D camera from Canon with a 24 -105mm zoom lens. The first prize winner will also be rewarded with a trip to three European capital cities (2 days per city, for 6 days in total).
(The first prize has an equivalent value of approx. €5,000)
The 2nd prize is a professional digital D300 camera by Nikon with a 18-200 zoom lens. The winner of the second prize will receive a trip through two European capital cities (2 days per city, for 4 days in total).
(Second prize has an equivalent value of approx. €3,000)
The 3rd prize is a digital K10 D camera by Pentax with a 18-55 mm zoom lens and 55-200mm zoom lens, along with a two-day trip to one capital city in Europe.
(Third prize has an equivalent value of approx. €2,000)

Public’s Favourite award winner
The winner of the online voting will win a professional digital E3 camera by Olympus with a 14-54 zoom lens. The winner of “the Public’s Favourite award” will also be rewarded with a trip to three European capital cities (2 days per city, for 6 days in total).
(The prize has an equivalent value of approx. €5,000)

All winners will also be invited to the official competition awards ceremony, which will take place in September 2008.

The competition is open to all EU residents.

Competition Link / Set Reminder

The competition is open to all photographers, both professional and amateur, of 16 years and over who live in the UK. The Urban Photographer of the Year will be the person who, in the eyes of the judges, captures iconic observation on the theme ‘CITIES AT WORK’.

The objective is to explore work life in the UK’s towns and cities during any single hour of a 24 hour day. There will be 24 prizes, one awarded for each hour and from these will be chosen the Urban Photographer of the Year and two runners up.

You can choose to photograph any UK town or city at work at any hour. For example a photograph could capture Oxford at work at 10am, Liverpool at work at 2am, Bristol at work at 9pm and so on. You can enter up to 24 separate photographs but only one for each hour. Please ensure you read the Rules.

Prizes (for Urban Photographer of the Year and two runners up)

WINNER

The winner who will be given the Title of CB Richard Ellis Urban Photographer of the Year, will be awarded a personal photographic safari in Marrakech and the Atlas Mountains for two people. This includes return flights, transfers, accommodation, guides, meals and permits. This is a special prize that will enable the winning photographer and one companion to sample the truly unique city of Marrakech, where the 1200 year old Medina has housed centuries of learning, trade and a fascinating range of cultural influences. The Jamaa el Fna’a is a designated world heritage site and the Koutubia Mosque is the visible centre of all activity in the city.

Following Marrakech there will also be the chance to travel to La Roserie Hotel in the middle of the High Atlas Mountains as well having the option of crossing the tallest mountains in North Africa to the Sahara beyond. You will be consulted on your itinerary prior to departure.

In addition to this magical journey (valued at approx £5,000) the winner will also have the opportunity to display their photographic skills in Digital Photographer Magazine, one of the UK’s leading photography magazines. The best images of the trip will be featured in an editorial article in 2008.

FIRST RUNNER UP

The first runner up wins a week one-on-one course at the International Academy of Professional Photography with Martin Grahame-Dunn, FMPA, FRSA, FSWPP, FBPPA, QEP, Hon.FMPA. Martin is a Past National President of the United Kingdom Master Photographers Association and has also been a Director of the Federation of European Professional Photographers (FEP). Based in his school close to Cordoba and Seville he will create a week of personal tuition based on your input. As probably the top photographic mentor in Europe and as a Past Chairman of the Admissions and Qualifications Board he is uniquely placed to support you in gaining that step closer to your next qualification or to simply focus on the discipline of your choice. 
With great local connections Martin has hosted photographic trips into the old town of Cordoba. This includes return flights, transfers, accommodation, guides, meals and permits.

SECOND RUNNER UP

The second runner up will win a Wacom Cintiq 21 inch Graphics Panel. With its larger screen size of 21.3 inch, the flat drawing surface and the decreased distance between pen and display, the Cintiq 21UX let all previous Interactive Pen Displays pale in comparison. Experience a whole new meaning to on-screen work with the expanded Intuos3 technology. At the same time, the Cintig 21UX is the most efficient of all Interactive Pen Displays: It features ExpressKeys and Touch Strips on both sides of the display, to accommodate the needs of both left- and right-handers equally. The Cintiq 21UX comes together with the Cintiq Grip Pen, the unique Cintiq stand that enables you to rotate the display by 360° (if laying) and to tilt it by 10-60° as well as a separate pen stand and the required DVI and VGA graphics card adaptors.

Competition Link / Set Reminder