PhotographyCorner Announces Younes Bounhar as the Winner of the 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest

PRLog (Press Release) – Feb 04, 2008 – The 2nd Annual PhotographyCorner.com (http://www.photographycorner.com) Photograph of the Year contest, announced December 18th, 2007, concluded after two rounds of voting by the photography community by naming Younes Bounhar of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada as the winner of the contest.  The second Photograph of the Year contest held by PhotographyCorner.com, which featured 12, high-profile sponsors with over $20,000 in prizes to be won, drew in hundreds of entries and thousands of votes.  The top prize awarded to Younes Bounhar consists of a variety of photography-related equipment, products and services, software, a web site, gift certificates and cash is valued at over $5,000, with the remaining prizes given to the top 10 finalists.

Younes Bounhar took top honors with his photograph titled “Ice and Fire.”  The top 10 finalists, in order from 1st runner-up to 9th runner-up include Poras Chaudhary of Haryana, India, Neil R. Shapiro of Niskayuna, New York, Gavin Johnstone of Sidney, British Columbia, Brandon Curiel of Belvue, Colorado, Jennifer Carroll of Newcastle, Ontario, Ciaran Whyte of Dublin, Ireland, Rose Marie Proctor of Lebanon, Missouri, Mel Brackstone of Brisbane, Australia, and Bradley Vink of Mississauga, Ontario.  All submitted entries can now be viewed in the Photo Galleries on PhotographyCorner.com (http://www.photographycorner.com/galleries/showgallery.p ... ), with the top 17 entries from the final voting round viewable in the Photo Galleries here: http://www.photographycorner.com/galleries/showgallery.p ....

With over $20,000 in prizes available to be won, and with first prize alone valued at over $5,000, the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year contest received hundreds of entries from all over the world.  The entries were narrowed down to 160 photographs in 16 voting groups, where the top entry in each group moved on to the final voting round, which ended on January 31st, 2008.

There are several things that set the contest apart from some of the other “Best of 2007” photography contests.  Firstly, winners can be from anywhere in the world, not just limited to the US or Canada, making the contest truly a worldwide photography contest.  In fact, their most recent Photograph of the Month winner was from Canada, with other past winners from various places around the world including the USA, Sweden, the UK, Australia, Israel, Africa, India, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.  In addition, instead of having a select group of judges pick a winner, the entire community voted on every photograph, broken down in several rounds.  With this unique voting process, every eligible submitted photograph was given a chance to win, not just a select few picked out by judges, giving the community complete power over which photographs were awarded “Best Photograph of 2007.”

In an interview about the Photograph of the Year contest, the owner and founder of PhotographyCorner.com, Tim L. Walker, expressed that "the excitement and unique features of this contest display exactly why PhotographyCorner is such a popular and unique home for photographers on the web.  Anyone can enter the contest, and anyone can win.  I don’t decide.  A bunch of “professional” judges don’t decide.  The community decides.  They’re the photographers – they should pick the winners."  He continued by adding that “it’s encouraging to see such an amazing and diverse group of sponsors step up to reward and encourage photographers from around the world.  With over $20,000 in prizes, the winners have added thousands of dollars worth of equipment, software and services to their arsenal, allowing them to further improve their photography – and that’s what it’s really all about.  Photography enriches all of our lives in one way or another, and contests like this serve to improve the photography we see all around us every day.”

The 12 contest sponsors, including SmugMug.com, PsPrint.com, MastersofWeddingPhotography.com and ScanCafe.com, have offered up an amazing collection of cash and prizes (http://www.photographycorner.com/2007-photograph-of-the- ...) that includes software, equipment, cash, gift certificates, camera bags, photography-related services, web sites and more.  The contest rules can be found at http://www.photographycorner.com/2007-photograph-of-the-year-rules, and all information about the contest can be found at http://www.photographycorner.com/2007-photograph-of-the-year.


About www.PhotographyCorner.com

PhotographyCorner.com is a leading photography resources portal for photographers, which includes member-written articles, tutorials, forums, a community photo gallery, a photography directory, a photography blog, and a collection of photography projects.  The site runs a monthly Photograph of the Month contest and eighteen yearly Contest Corner Challenges, as well as providing an area of the site for photographers to receive constructive criticism of their work in the Critiques Corner.  PhotographyCorner.com was launched in March 2004.

About SmugMug.com

SmugMug, your photos look better here. A father and son team founded the company in 2002. Since then SmugMug has continued to stay a private family owned business, profitable and debt free. Every subscription comes with unlimited storage with no ads surrounding any photo. "White-glove" is the best way to describe SmugMug's customer service. SmugMug believes in taking care of our customers. Real people, real photographers are always available to assist customer's every need 365/24/7. SmugMug provides all the necessary tools and functionality for privacy and security of each priceless photo. For added security each photo is saved multiple times in multiple data centers around the country, making it truly the "Fort Knox" for photos.

About PsPrint.com

PsPrint is committed to providing our customers with premium quality, low prices and exceptional customer service. Try PsPrint.com for all your printing needs.

About MastersofWeddingPhotography.com

'Masters of Wedding Photography' series of DVDs follow the worlds top Wedding photographers as they photograph real weddings/assignments. The DVDs give an insight into why the featured photographers have become the best in the business.

About ScanCafe.com

ScanCafe provides the safest, easiest, and most affordable slide scanning, photo scanning, negative scanning, and photo restoration services. ScanCafe was ranked #1 scanning service by Money Magazine, January 2008.


For more information, please visit www.PhotographyCorner.com and http://www.photographycorner.com/2007-photograph-of-the-year.  Tim L. Walker can be reached at 705.321.9542 or via email at twalker@photographycorner.com to answer any questions.