PhotographyCorner.com Announces Faisal Almalki the Winner of the 2009 Photograph of the Year Contest

Feb. 2, 2010 - PRLog -- Barrie, Ontario, Canada – February 2nd, 2010 – The 4th Annual PhotographyCorner.com ( http://www.photographycorner.com ) Photograph of the Year contest, which announced in early December 2009, concluded after two rounds of voting by the photography community.  Once the votes were tallied, up-and-coming photographer Faisal Almalki of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was named the winner of the popular contest.  The fourth Photograph of the Year contest held by PhotographyCorner.com, which featured nine, high-profile sponsors with $10,000 in prizes to be won, drew in hundreds of entries and thousands of votes.  The top prize awarded to Faisal Almalki consists of a variety of photography-related equipment, products and services, software and gift certificates valued at over $3,250, with the remaining prizes given to the top 10 finalists.

Faisal Almalki took top honors with his photograph titled “Autumn Resurrection.”  The top 10 finalists, in order from 1st runner-up to 9th runner-up include: Sasha Radosavljevic from Novi Beograd, Serbia; John Bennett from Lincoln, UK; Mohammed AlQahtani from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; James Harris from Deltona. Florida; Stacy Niedzwiecki from Rockford, Michigan; Garry Schlatter from Cannon Hill, Queensland, Australia; Neil Shapiro from Niskayuna, New York; Masoud Harati from North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; and Doug Hagadorn from St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.  All submitted entries can now be viewed in the Photo Galleries on PhotographyCorner.com ( http://photographycorner.smugmug.com/Photograph-of-the-Ye... ), with the top 21 entries from the final voting round viewable in the Photo Galleries here: http://photographycorner.smugmug.com/Photograph-of-the-Ye....

With over $10,000 in prizes available to be won, and with first prize alone valued at over $3,250, the PhotographyCorner.com 2009 Photograph of the Year contest received hundreds of entries from all over the world.  The entries were narrowed down to 147 photographs in 7 voting groups, where the top three entries in each group moved on to the final voting round, which ended on January 26th, 2010.

There are several things that set the contest apart from some of the other “Best of the Year” 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, some of the past winners are from various places around the world which include the USA, Sweden, the UK, Australia, Canada, Pakistan, Argentina, Israel, Africa, India, Serbia, 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 2009.”

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 $10,000 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 9 contest sponsors, including PhotoBookPress.com, Mpix.com, CottonCarrier.com and Imageveux.com, have offered up an amazing collection of cash and prizes ( http://www.photographycorner.com/2009-photograph-of-the-y... ) that includes software, equipment, gift certificates, camera bags, photography-related services and more.  The contest rules can be found at http://www.photographycorner.com/2009-photograph-of-the-year-rules, and all information about the contest can be found at http://www.photographycorner.com/2009-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 numerous 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 www.PhotoBookPress.com

PhotoBook Press combines the finest design and digital print technology with old world book arts to create custom photo books that are as notable as the events they commemorate. Smyth sewn signatures are the gold standard of the craft of bookbinding. Sewn in the middle of the fold to create 12-page booklets, which are then sewn together to create book block from as few as 24 to more than 300 pages, these strong and beautiful books will always open flat and will never come apart. PhotoBook Press creates the only photo books available with this high quality sewn binding.


For more information, please visit www.PhotographyCorner.com and http://www.photographycorner.com/2009-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.

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PhotographyCorner.com is a leading portal for photographers, which includes member-written articles, tutorials, forums, a photography directory and projects.