IDmented: August 2012

Monday, August 13, 2012

Capture the City Photo Competition: the winner – Lonely Planet blog

When we launched the Capture the City photo competition, we weren’t sure how travellers would respond. After sorting through over 2500 beautiful entries we now know the answer: everyone who entered aimed to make our job of picking a winner as difficult as possible.

There just were too many great photos to get our heads around from cities big and small all over the globe, many that we could easily imagine as covers of Lonely Planet city guidebooks. Some were classic images of famous landmarks, while a surprising number showed sides to cities you rarely if ever see. Other photos came from cities we don’t publish standalone guidebook for, but were so gorgeous it made us wish we did.

We chipped and whittled and hacked away at the list until we had the best of the best, and now – at long last – we’re ready to announce the winner. But let’s start with the short list of our favourites. Posted in no particular order below, each of these had a real shot at winning (and one of them is the winner):

Chicago – Michael Bishara

Kyoto – Ghazali Hariri

Rome – Mathew Roberts

Venice – Brice Chevaux

Chicago – Harriet Ward

Moscow – Dario Endara

Hanoi – Matt P.

Amsterdam – Simon Williams

Berlin – Lucinda Galbraith

Budapest – Ruj Chuchaisangrat

Hong Kong – Judith Mareich

Paris – Burcu Kaplan

Sydney – Kumiko Naka

Seoul – Sungjin Kim

Barcelona – Bruno Marfinati

Istanbul – Jie Weng Lee

Puerto Vallarta – Shanti Gilbert

Angkor Wat – Yvette P.

Venice – Ari Sun

Prague – Swee Ong Wu

Venice – Brice Chevaux

Dubai – Desai Chittaranjan

Prague – Francis Lambert

New York City – Walter Chen

And among these, who won? Each judge had their favourite, but they finally settled on the winner. The winning entry (below) by photographer Brice Chevaux, taken on a peach-skied morning in Venice, with the line of the canal bending intriguingly behind the buildings, captures the look, feel and movement of Venice with the perfect blend of reality and playful fantasy. As a photo it feels like it’s telling a story; as a book cover it makes you want to open the book just to see if the scene continues.

Congratulations to Brice, and many thanks to everyone who entered the competition for sharing your best city photos with us all!

Keep an eye out for more competitions on our Facebook page, and join our weekly photo challenges on Flickr.