ILA Berlin 2012: Lincolnshire's Gaz West wins Eurofighter photo contest
Above: Gaz's winning Eurofighter image.
The competition, which sees the best amateur images of Typhoon submitted from across the globe, has this year received entries from as far afield as Malaysia and India as well as Slovenia, Turkey and Bulgaria to name just a few. Yet again the standard has been exceptionally high making the decision incredibly hard for the experienced judges.
This year’s judging panel - which was held at ILA Berlin Air Show on Monday 10th September - was led by Theodor Benien, Head of Communications at Eurofighter GmbH, renowned Eurofighter Typhoon photographer Geoffrey Lee from Planefocus, last year’s competition runner up Alvaro Munoz-Aycuens, Andreas Westphal from images.art.design. and Stuart Clarke from Flightglobal, alongside Eurofighter media relations representatives Kathryn Holm and Martina Schmidmeir.
The images submitted impressed the panel with their quality and diversity; some with fantastic scenery as their back drop offered stunning contrasts between nature and technology, others of the aircraft fully loaded, innovative concept shots that caught the eye and those highlighting its stunning silhouette.
The entries, which were hotly debated by the panel, were eventually whittled down to three fantastic images. In third place was a dusk shot at Eielson Air Force Base taken by Marcel Wenk which captured the and striking arctic summer skyline in Alaska during the Red Flag exercise in June.
In second place, and narrowly missing out on first, was a stunning take-off shot by Mark Tyson showing the vapour trails pouring off all surfaces of the aircraft like silk sheets. Thanks to a rare combination of speed, g-forces, and moisture in the air, Mark was able to take a truly captivating shot.
Above: The second place take-off shot by Mark Tyson.
Above: Third place went to Marcel Wenk.
The winning photograph by Gaz West captures the setting sun over RAF Coningsby and poetically suggests ‘mission accomplished’ as the aircraft returns safely to base. Lincolnshire amateur photographer Gaz is testament to the commitment and patience of an aviation photographer that will ultimately deliver that iconic shot. His striking image will be on the front cover of the 2013 Eurofighter Calendar and, among other prizes, Gaz will sit on the judging panel of next year’s competition.
Special mention goes to Jaden Shillingford, Freddie Kempton and Karram Sandhu who submitted impressive images of the aircraft and are all under 16 years of age.
