Picture perfect

April, 2012

Photographers from WCMC-Q took five out of 12 of the top honors in Education City’s photographic competition, Capture Light 6.

Started by WCMC-Q in 2006, the contest is now run by Education City photographic club Qumrah. In all there were about 450 submissions with the photographic club whittling them down to the best 85.

The top three overall winners were then chosen by judges along with the winners for each section.

Leading the way for WCMC-Q were Linda Lewis, a curriculum assistant in the Office of Curriculum Support who came second overall, and Medical Student Abdulhadi Al Saei who came in third. The top spot was taken by Kai-Henrik Barth, assistant dean for academic affairs at Georgetown University – School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

Linda’s black and white photograph was originally submitted in the Poverty section and shows a young boy in India with three puppies.

Linda said: “I took it in Mumbai. My husband and I were passing by and saw that the boy was so happy with his dogs so I just clicked the button. It’s a natural picture, it was spontaneous.”

Phoram Vaidya, also a curriculum assistant in the Office of Curriculum Support, took first in the Action category while Sam Agnew, a server administrator in IT, took first in the Animal category. Kristine Heiney, a teaching assistant in WCMC-Q’s Foundation Program won the Qatar category.

The pictures were judged by WCMC-Q photographer John Samples with WCMC-Q Research Associate Hamid Massaeli and Michael Grossman of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar. None of the judges were aware who had taken any of the images.

John said Linda’s image had provoked a long debate between the judges and had only narrowly missed out on the top spot.

He said: “We really liked the feel of it. The boy’s happiness at having the puppies really shines through. It gave us a good feeling and I liked that it was in black and white – in color it would not have been so strong.”