2012 Hasselblad Masters Awards Winners Announced

Architectural: Frank Meyl, Germany

Hasselblad has just  announced the eleven winners of the prestigious Masters Award, one for each of eleven categories. A distinguished and diverse panel of international judges representing different sectors of the photo industry selected the winning images.

“The Hasselblad Masters Competition is a showcase for photographic excellence and provides both up and coming and established photographers the opportunity for their work to be seen like no other,” Grand Jury member Colin Prior explains.

The 2012 Hasselblad Masters Awards winners are:

• Architectural: Frank Meyl, Germany
• Editorial: Jon Lowenstein, USA
• Fashion/Beauty: Wai Kuen Eric Wong, Hong Kong
• Fine Art: Christian Tagliavini, Switzerland
• General: Ken Hermann, Denmark
• Landscapes/Nature: Tom D. Jones, Belgium
• Portrait: Denis Rouvre, France
• Products: Joe Felzman, USA
• Up & Coming: Vicente Ansola, Spain
• Wedding/Social: Milosz Wozaczynski, Poland
• Wildlife: Lucas Pupo, Brazil

Editorial: Jon Lowenstein, USA

Winners will be given access to an H4D, lenses and Phocus software for this year’s project, creating a series of images based on their individual interpretations of the theme “evoke.” Paul Waterworth, Hasselblad’s Global Photographer Relations Manager explains, “The term evoke can mean many different things, so it will be very interesting to see how these photographers put their own visual spin on the theme.”

For the second year in a row, the public was invited to vote for their favorite images – a practice that especially appealed to Grand Jury member Thomas Gerwers, Editor-in-Chief of ProfiFoto Magazine.

“What is unique is that the public can view and judge the participating pictures online, so the Hasselblad Award is not happening in a black box but is all transparent,” says Gerwers adding that “What I like is that Hasselblad has opened the contest for all kinds of professional photography, even for those which have not been taken with a Hasselblad.”

Fashion/Beauty: Wai Kuen Eric Wong, Hong Kong

The public will have to wait until Photokina in September when the final work is presented in a special exhibition to see the end results of this creative exercise. As part of the Masters Awards, winners will also have their images published in the third annual commemorative Masters book: Masters Vol. 3 – EVOKE, which will also be presented at Photokina.

Hasselblad and the winning images will travel – from Los Angeles and New York to Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing, Mumbai, Moscow and São Paulo and points in between – to share some of the best images of the competition with the rest of the world.