Cash prize to the tune of Rs. 7.25 lakh was given away to winners of the fifth edition of DJ Memorial Photography Contest (DJMPC) 2016 at the awards ceremony at Kasthuri Sreenivasan Culture Centre, here, on Saturday. An exhibition of select pictures of contestants that was also inaugurated on the day will be open to the public till Agust 3.
The annual competition was instituted by Lakshmi Machine Works Limited (LMW) in 2012 in memory of the company’s past Chairman and Managing Director D. Jayavarthanavelu (DJ), who had a passion for photography. This year, the contest was open to contestants from April 1 to June 30 online atwww.djmpc.in
Entries had to be on nature without human intervention of any kind and had to be taken in India. According to the organisers, as many as 1,220 participants had participated in the contest this year. They had submitted a total of 3,797 entries. This is an increase from the nearly 850 participants who submitted around 3,200 entries in 2015.
Maximum participation was from Indians. However, there were 22 participants from more than 12 countries. A three-member panel of jury consisting of Jill Sneesby, C.R. Sathyanarayana and S. Thippeswamy judged the entries, while K. Maruthachalam acted as the administrator of the contest.
A total of eight prize winners, including the top three winners and five merit certificate winners were handpicked by them. The top three winners bagged a cash prize of Rs. 3 lakh, Rs. 2.25 lakh and Rs. 1.5 lakh respectively. Merit certificate winners were given cash prizes of Rs. 10,000 each.
Prizes were given away to them by the Chairman and Managing Director of LMW Sanjay Jayavarthanavelu. The awards ceremony was followed by inauguration of the five-day exhibition inaugurated by Rajyalakshmi Jayavarthanavelu.
The expo has on display top 95 pictures handpicked by the jury. It is open to the public free of cost.
Winners
1st Prize – Ramu M. (Brown Headed Gull Fighting); 2nd Prize - Satisha Sarakki (Encounter); 3rd Prize - Martin K.P. (White-Eye in Action).
Merit winners: Devendra Kumar S. (Snake Slayer); Prasanna Venkatesh G. (Pelican in flight and splashing); Ashok Kumar Das (Rhino mating); Eash Hoskote (Elephant dust bath in back light) and Sharad Singh (Barbaric wrestling tigers).
