The Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages held a photography competition in summer 2018, for students who had been on their Year Abroad during the 2017-18 academic year. The winning photos have now been selected and are presented below, with a short description from the photographers. The Faculty would like to thank all those who entered the competition.
Overall winner
"Escaped" - Os Leanse (entered in the category 'The Unexpected')
'If you take a ferry across Havana Bay you reach the dilapidated municipality of Regla on the fringes of the capital. It is an eerie place of forgotten factories. I climbed a hill called the Colina Lenin dedicated to the Russian revolutionary. There, the city looked still and empty. Then two horses came bolting around the corner.'
Category winner - People
"Pushkin's Birthday at The State Tretyakov Gallery" - Chiara Sandifer
'I was at the Tretyakov Gallery on 6th June and noticed that a basket of flowers had been put under Pushkin’s portrait for his birthday. As I walked away, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I turned around to take a quick picture. Since I took it from quite far away, a number of other portraits managed to make it into the photo, plus an elderly Russian lady walking past and admiring Pushkin. For me, though, the flowers still remain centre stage, and the most important people in the picture are the invisible gallery workers who had the idea of putting them there. It reminded me of the thoughtful, generous nature of Russian people, and shows that it’s the small gestures in life that go a long way.'
Category winner - Places of Interest
"Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau" - Abi Malins
'The former Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, built between 1901 and 1930 in Barcelona. Created by modernist architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner to be full of uplifting and healing colour, nature and light, it has to be one of the city's best hidden highlights.'
Highly commended
The judging panel also opted to declare three additional photos as highly commended; these can be seen below.
"The Hills Are Alive" - Katie Guest (entered in the category 'People')
'My photo "The Hills are Alive" was taken at a special Mass that took place in the mountainous region of Reichenfels in the Austrian state of Carinthia. A traditional music band are captured as they prepare to lead a parade of pilgrims, who had been travelling since dawn to attend a wonderful morning of religious, musical, and culinary celebration.'
"Morning Mist hangs over" - Tom Lee (entered in the category 'Places of Interest')
"Sea Horses" - Jenny O'Sullivan (entered in the category 'The Unexpected')
'I took this photo on a day trip to the Danish island of Rømø towards the end of my year abroad, when I was working as a nature guide on the neighbouring island, Sylt, in Germany's northern-most village. Rømø has one of the widest beaches in Europe - it took us at least 40 minutes to walk from the shore to the sea, the expansive flatness felt quite surreal. Living and working in the middle of the Wadden Sea Natural World Heritage site and learning all about the wildlife of the tidal flats was a real high point of the year.'
