CWA Photo of the Year Competition 2018 – Winners Announced

Once again, we were blown away by the exceptional range and quality of the images submitted to the CWA Photo Competition 2018. From small finds to mighty monuments, the entries reflected the full diversity of our global heritage. With so much talent on show, we handed over the difficult task of selecting a winning image to our judge, photographer Adam Stanford of Aerial-Cam, who announced the results at the CA Awards ceremony in February.

We are delighted to report that Aidin Alihodžić is this year’s winner, with his image ‘Scattered Past’, which shows stećci in a medieval necropolis in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ‘From a large and interesting sky, the viewer is drawn in to look more closely at the animal depicted in bas relief on the tombstone. The eye is then taken to the warm glow on the horizon and an exploration of the vast landscape in which the site nestles. The photographer captured interest and harmony with colour, composition, unusual cloud formations, and complementary alignment between the stones in the foreground and the mountains in the distance,’ Adam said.

The winning photo was on display throughout the two days of CA Live! 2018 at Senate House in London, alongside our three runners-up. Speaking about Gauvin Lapetoule’s ‘Alhambra of Granada (Spain)’, Adam remarked: ‘The photographer created an impressive vista with an exposure of nearly seven minutes and an attractive contrast between the warmth and angularity of the architecture in the foreground, through the misty clouds to the cold hues of snow-capped mountains and a dream-like sky.’

Rui Pires’ shot of a devali inscription at Kuldhara (India) was chosen for its ‘great use of composition and narrow depth of field that make this intriguing inscription almost legible to the unknowing, while the warmth of the raking light gives a sense of the climate of Rajasthan.’

Alexei Savchenko’s ‘Letting the genie out of the freshly excavated 12th-century jar (Uzbekistan)’ also impressed our judge, who commented: ‘Not only does this image capture one of the key elements of archaeology, that it is about people, but it also conveys the passing of knowledge and interest from one generation to the next – an important message candidly captured and beautifully presented.’