Wow, there are a lot of photography competitions on just now! And thank you to the readers who entered our Better Photography Magazine Photographer of the Year 2023 - we're currently in the middle of judging and commenting on the entries - stay tuned.

However, the reason for this newsletter is to thank MomentoPro (Libby and Geoff) for their support of the International Portrait Photographer of the Year awards. Like the sister competition, the International Landscape Photographer of the Year, the award revolves around a book that features the top 101 entries. Although the competitions also have major cash prizes, as a judge I have found it really challenging to determine whether one photograph is better than another (and I still do). The reality is the major prizes are a matter of opinion. Yes, you can get a score or win the equivalent of a Bronze, Silver or Gold Award, and we can generally agree on this 'standard', but how do you work out whether one Gold award is better than another?

My solution was to have 101 winners. This is the philosophy behind those two awards and sure, I still have a problem working out which photographs get into the top 101 (it's still a finite number), but this system allows the judges to acknowledge a greater number of 'great' photographs.

Last week, Kim dropped down to the office with a paper copy of the 2023 International Portrait Photographer of the Year Awards book. It has now been sent out to the major prize winners and proudly printed by MomentoPro. And it looks fantastic. The print job is great, no doubt about that, my with Kathie did a sensational design job, and along with the variety and quality of the 101+ portraits within its pages, the combined result is simply stellar.  

I'm known as a landscape photographer, but I'm really a closet portraitist! My favourite photographer is Irving Penn and the closest he came to photographing landscape was an ashtray with cigarette butts or a bunch of flowers in a vase, yet portrait photography teaches us so much about light, concepts and ideas, no matter what genre you follow.

While I'm a firm believer in printed works, you can see the winning International Portrait Photographer of the Year awards in a flipbook on-line - just visit the website (www.internationalportraitphotographer.com) and enjoy the top 101 images. And once you do, you might even jump into the online shop and order a paper copy of the book as well! You won't be disappointed.

And if you'd like to enter the International Landscape Photographer of the Year, there's still time! Check out the details at https://internationallandscapephotographer.com/.