After a virtual awards ceremony in 2020 and a pandemic-enforced pause in 2021, the Off To Work Event Photography Awards have relaunched with a double-quick 2022 competition for images captured during 2020 and 2021.
The Event Photography Awards were founded in 2014 by Philip Atkins, Managing Director of premier event staffing agency Off to Work, to celebrate the (often unsung) photographers who contribute so much to the validity, sustenance and marketability of the events industry. EPA 2022 is the 8th edition of the competition.
This 2022 both professional and amateur photographers were asked to promptly review their portfolios and send in their photography by 31st July, with the awards ceremony set to take place at No.4 Hamilton Place in Mayfair on 4th October.
Two new categories have been added to the competition. ‘Covid Chronicles’ is a special one-off class which has already attracted evocative shots. The other is the classic photography genre ‘Portraits’.
A cash prize of £1,000 augments the professional cache of being the Overall Winner, while there are trophies for all category winners, as well as Runners-Up and Highly Commended acknowledgements.
Competition director, Graham Hill, commented: “Photography does so much to promote and sustain the events industry and as such we felt it was important not to wait until 2023 to relaunch the EPAs, especially as there have been some amazing images taken between lockdowns and at Covid-compliant events
With this in mind, we’ve organised a quick-fire double-year competition, hence the unusually short amount of time to submit event-related images. Encouragingly, past entrants are already uploading fabulous shots into a new system that also allows organisers and venues to enter photos on behalf of photographers that they have hired.”
Claire Fennelow, EVCOM’s Executive Director, is one of the judges for the Event Photography Awards and is really looking forward reviewing the entries this year.
Claire says, “As an event organiser and an appreciater of photography, I am really glad to see the return of these awards. Events have had to take all sorts of unusual shapes and forms, and I expect photography from this time will have captured so much of this resourcefulness and creativity in the face of struggle. I look forward to seeing how event photographers have caught it all on camera.”
Some 150 event photographs entered well over 1000 images into the 2020 competition. Take a look at some of the winning images below: