One of the most prestigious photographic competitions in the world is the Trierenberg Super Circuit, which attracts tens of thousands of entries every year, from professional and amateur photographers, as well as artists and other assorted creatives. Each year they hold a magnificent gala evening, inviting all the major award winners. I won a gold medal last year but was unable to attend as I had used all my holiday allowance from work, but lightning does strike twice and I was fortunate enough to win a gold medal this year and so recently made the trip to attend the opening.
The exhibition gala evening is held at the Design Centre in Linz, Austria. There is a super exhibition of many of the award winning images in print, the medals are presented, and the award winning photographers are presented to their peers on stage in the glare of the TV cameras. There are also interviews with the sponsors and some of the photographers.
It was inspiring meeting so many great photographers and seeing their work, and discussing their photography with them. It is also quite humbling, thinking that the judges considered my images on the same level as those of these other photographers, some of whose images I truly think of as awesome, and that is the real McCoy ‘awesome’ and not the watered down version that is bandied around so much nowadays.
So before we get to some snaps from the evening I’d like to share the award-winning images from some of the photographers I met that evening, and who have very kindly given me permission to share with you, so thank you all. These are in no particular order, well in fact they’re in the order I found them in my inbox :)
Mohammadreza Rezania from Iran.
After The Flame by
Mohammadreza Rezania, Iran
Natali Orion from Georgia
State of Mind by Natali Orion, Georgia
Bojan Petrovic from Serbia.
Grief by Bojan Petrovic, Serbia
Marco Bartolini from Italy.
Blue City by Marco Bartolini, Italy
Richard Spurdens from England.
Expression on Pointe by Richard Spurdens, England
Jackson Carvalho from Brazil
Angelus Dominus by Jackson Carvalho, Brazil
Brian Hopper from Ireland.
Raphaella’s Dance by Brian Hopper, Ireland
Also please check out the amazing images, including some interesting self-portraits, from the talented Flora Borsi from Hungary, who was on our table.
And finally my gold medal winner, it probably wouldn’t surprise many people that it’s an image of Ivory Flame, but it may surprise you that it’s one of my fully clothed images of her. It was printed on a textured art paper, so the digital version does not fully do it justice.
Gothic Lady by Tim Pile, England
Here’s a few photographs from the evening to give you an idea of what it was like. Thank you to the photographers who sent me the images.
Here’s me getting my medal (Image:Richard Spurdens)
These are some of the people from our table. We were supplied with excellent food and drink throughout the evening, and many new friendships were built.
One of me and Bojan. Although we had not met before we had communicated online quite a bit, and Bojan had kindly sent me pictures of my images in various exhibitions in Serbia.He very kindly gave me a very special book celebrating 40 years of his own camera club, which I am holding. It was great to meet him in person, and I’m hoping to travel to Serbia next year and do a joint shoot with him.
Me being interviewed, with my bohemian hair, not a patch on that of Chris Hinterobermaier though ;-) (Image:Markus Lauboeck)
I’m on the tele Mom :) (Image: Jackson Carvalho)
Me being interviewed with the medal winner on-screen. (Image:Markus Lauboeck)
A couple more of my images on screen while Chris is grilling me :) (images:Bojan Petrovic)
And here’s a sneaky iPhone image I took from the stage, there were over 70 tables with 8 people on each table.
Here’s the catalogue from the exhibition, a coffee table book on our coffee table, it weighs 3Kg so took a bit of effort getting back home, especially as my luggage was already near the weight limit, but it is a virtually endless resource of inspiring images which I shall be reading from cover to cover over the next few years!
And this is the gold medal I received, a beautiful medal, sadly not real gold, but it’s the meaning not the material that is important.
The Gold Medal
Thank you to all the great photographers I met, especially those who allowed me to use their images in this post, and to Chris and Uli Hinterobermaier for organising and running such a superb exhibition and amazing evening, and finally to Holly for producing the winning print with me, without which none of this would have been possible. I’m now totally inspired and raring to produce new images, and have lots of invitations from people to visit them – as long as I bring a young lady or two with me, funny that ;-)
Am amazing evening. so if you ever get the chance to go to a future gala evening, then you really should!
13 Comments
Thanks my friend for your generosity and for the publications. For me it was a pleasure meeting you and start a new friendship. Regards.
It was great to meet you Jackson, and to share my special evening with you. Let’s hope we meet again sometime :)
What an evening that must have been something you will no doubt never forget Thanks for sharing all the beautiful images and the photographs of the event Blue City is one of my all time favourites I have admired it frequently on the FB its an image I often seek out and sit and admire seeing something more each time Congratulations to each and every photographer whose images you have so kindly shared xx
Thank you, and it was indeed a really super evening Elizabeth, one I shall never forget. I too have admired that image for sometime, so it was great to meet the author and for him to autograph my book next to the image.
thanks I’m Marco Bartolini and make me very happy your positive comments made about my BLUE CITY
A good write up Tim it was such a great evening.
It was great to share the evening with you Richard.
A very exciting event. Thanks for sharing the evening. Seeing the attention photography gets
is very exciting and inspiring. I enjoyed seeing the works from other countries as well.
Thank you as always Mr Pope, and it was good to meet people from so many different countries. We are all so different, but photography has brought us all together in friendship, so we are all the same :)
Huge congrats Tim, a well deserved achievement. One more for the archives eh :)
Cheers Dave, none of it possible without you and our little adventure :)
It was a great experience, never to be forgotten, but I’m only as good as my next image :)
Glad you had a great evening at this event, the photos you posted here are amazing, and I’m pleased our photos did so well, they look fab on the big screen. Congratulations. And happy birthday for today!
Thank you Holly, it really was a superb evening . I will always be extremely grateful to you for producing all our of images, but especially those two shown which are really magical, as well as very successful. I’m a year older, and hopefully wiser ;-)