Entries to the Hasselblad Masters Awards has grown from 2500 in 2012 to nearly 4000 for the latest competition. "For the first time we allowed entries from photographers who have been active professionals for more than three years and who use cameras of 16MP and above, regardless of brand or format," said Hasselblad's Global Photographer Relations Manager, Paul Waterworth. "We're delighted by how many people responded." Following a call for entries last May, professional photographers had until the end of August to send in their best images to compete in 12 categories: Fine Art, Landscapes/Nature, Wedding/Social, Portrait, Fashion/Beauty, Editorial, Products, Architectural, General, Wildlife, and two new categories - Project/21 and Underwater. A jury at Hasselblad then reduced thousands of entries to a shortlist of 120 - 10 images in each category - and these were posted online in mid-January.
The public can view the images at the website:www.hasselblad.com/masters-finalists and can vote for their favourites, this online poll counting as one vote in each category. The public voting will be open until October 31, 2013. In November and December a Grand Jury of industry experts (details to be revealed later this year) will decide on the 12 Hasselblad Masters winners out of the selected 120 finalists. The 12 winners will be announced in January next year. They will then start working on the Hasselblad Masters Book Vol 4, which will be launched at photokina in Cologne, Germany, in September 2014. It's the third time the
public has been involved in the judging process.
The 12 Master photographers will have the opportunity to borrow Hasselblad equipment to create their new set of images for the fourth special Masters Commemorative Book. They will also receive a trophy at photokina 2014, and all winning images will be published on the Hasselblad global website and presented at exhibitions around the world.
