LPA Graduates Awards 2018 / Winners Announced!

LPA are delighted to announce the winners and runners up of our brand new competition- the LPA Graduate Awards 2018! As an agency well known for discovering and supporting new talent - through our initiatives such as LPA Futures and LPA Student Challenges -  we were keen this time to put the focus on Photography Graduates.

A photography degree is one thing and a great learning curve, but we feel real life shoot experience and advice from industry professionals is invaluable to setting  graduates on the right track. With this in mind we decided to launch the LPA Graduate Awards, offering kick-starter prizes at the very beginning of a career in the photography industry.

There were two categories in our competition, 'Single Image' and 'Series'. The criteria was simply to enter the strongest work with no restrictions on subject matter or genre. We were looking for a a winner and runner up from both categories.

The two winners will receive the following prizes:

– Mentoring sessions with Lisa Pritchard and team at the LPA HQ in London’s Covent Garden.

– A day on set with one of the LPA photographers.

– Copies of Lisa’s best selling books ‘’Setting Up a Successful Photography Business’’ and ‘’Running a Successful Photography Business” (published by Bloomsbury).

– Junior Assistant Membership to the Association of Photographers.

– Surprise Goody Bag!

The runners up will also receive copies of Lisa's books as well as AOP Junior Assistant Membership!

We put the call for entries out in May and were staggered by the amount and standard of entries.  After a long evening of debate  - albeit a thoroughly enjoyable experience -  the LPA team decided on two winners and two runners up!

Without any further ado ... the selected photographers are...

Single Image - Winner

Daniel Waite - Nathaniel

The winner of our single image category is this striking portrait taken by Daniel Waite. Daniel is graduating from a BA Photography degree at The University of Gloucestershire this year, and took this portrait of his friend Nathaniel recently as part of his degree. The expression of the model and the tones, shadows and lighting  really drew our attention to Daniel's stunning image.

Single Image - Runner Up 

Lucy Ranson - Store Studios

Graduating from a BA in Press and Editorial Photography from Falmouth University this year, Lucy captured this image while at an exhibition in London. This particular shot shows a woman walking through the installation by Ryoji Ikeda entitled 'Test Pattern'. We love the stark contrast within the frame, the graphic composition and how the light leads your eye off into the distance. A rather unusual image that captured our attention from the start.

Series - Winner

Jac Williams - Honest Agriculture

And the winning prize in the series category goes to Jac Williams who is graduating from a BA Photography degree at Anglia Ruskin University.

This documentary series by Jac follows the working lives and culture on the farm he grew up on in North Wales. As Jac explains, 'When I started this project I didn't realise how under appreciated farming was until I moved to a city by myself, after showing my photographs I realised people had not seen this kind of documentary work before in this way.'

A big fan of documentary photography, we love the authenticity of Jac's engaging series. He has perfectly captured a whole story here and a glimpse of a completely different way of life unknown to many.

Series Runner Up

Tommaso Giglia - Together

Tommaso is graduating from a BA Photography degree at London College of Communication this July, and his series of images concentrates on the idea of "Togetherness". As Tommaso explains 'This is a series of portraits somewhere between fashion and documentary photography that wants to evoke a sense of "our shared vulnerability...in a moment in time where our sense of 'togetherness' is threatened.' Tommaso hired models for this shoot, carefully selected people from countries all over the world to demonstrate this idea of 'Togetherness' in the shots!

We felt this was an extremely confident and memorable set of images. Tommaso really seems to have created something different here, which is no mean feat in such a competitive area.

Congratulations to our winners and runners up and thank you to all that entered the LPA Graduate Awards. As we mentioned, it was a very high standard so a very positive sign of the talent coming into the industry and things to come!

Now that we have our winners and runners up we are looking forward to meeting both Daniel and Jac here at the LPA head office for their mentoring sessions. We will also be documenting their days on set with an LPA photographer and getting their thoughts on winning and their aspirations for the future. So watch this space!