Entries are beginning to pour in for TradeWinds’ Maritime Photographer of the Year contest with the creative talent of readers already in evidence.

We have entries from seafarers, owners, brokers and surveyors but there is still plenty of time to get your camera out and join the contest.

A selection of the photos so far entered can be seen on this page.

Capt Ole Borkenhagen has entered dramatic images of an intrepid pilot boarding the 37,000-dwt chemical carrier Stolt Effort (built 1999) from a helicopter in a strong gale.

Bryan Lawrence of Columbia Shipmanagement took his Sony Cybershot to sea trials in South Korea and captured the impressive image of a bulbous bow cutting through the water at 28 knots.

Royal Bank of Scotland shipping business manager, Thom McKenzie, sent in an evocative image he titles "American Silver" of a vessel silhouetted by New York’s Verrazano Narrows Bridge

A series of atmospheric photos mostly taken shortly before sunset in the Danish ports of Stubbekobing and Omo, but some also taken at Turku in Finland, comes from Jo Koeppelmann of Brise Schiffahrts in Hamburg.

The winner of the TradeWinds’ 2007 Photographer of the Year contest, Egor Ryabchenko of DVB Bank in Rotterdam, has submitted an image taken through an aperture on the recently delivered Russian 14,000-ldt icebreaker Moscow of sistership the Saint Petersburg. The 16MW diesel electric vessels were built by Baltiysky Zavod for Rosmorport.

Philip English of Clarksons caught the moment with a series of photos of vessels laid up on the River Fal. They were taken with his Lumix DMC-FZ50.

Seattle surveyor Capt Syed Saifuddin of Alexander Gow Inc submits a high flying photo of three cruise ships in close proximity, presumably at some Pacific North West port.

Spyros Vlassopoulos of Hellespont Steamship sends a dramatic image of an inspection at Fujairah of the stern tube of the 422,000-dwt VLCC Hellespont Grand (built 1976) with crew members and technicians dwarfed by the propeller.

Vlassopoulos also sends a photo taken from the 13,000-dwt chemical carrier Hellespont Chivalry (built 2006) during a three day wait for a berth at Cape Town. The image of a sea lion on bulbous bow is better than it reproduces on a website.

“The sea lion would come every morning and sunbath on the bulbous bow all day long. After sunset he’d go fishing through the night until next morning when he’d reappear again and relax on his new sun bed,” recalls Vlassopoulos.

The winner of TradeWinds’ Maritime Photographer of the Year will receive a Nikon D90 digital SLR camera and the TradeWinds’ Maritime Photographer of the Year trophy.

The previous TradeWinds Maritime Photographer of the Year contests.The TradeWinds' Maritime Photographer of the Year contests in 2007 and 2008 attracted many hundreds of entries and we are hopeful 2009 will be just the same.

Click here to view last year's shortlisted entries

or here to view 2007's shortlisted entries.

We will publish a selection of the best photographs in future editions of the TradeWinds paper and on the www.tradewinds.no website. The winning entry will be selected from a short list by a readers' vote.

The Nikon D90 comes with a 18-105mm zoom lens with the winner also awarded the TradeWinds Maritime Photographer of the Year trophy.

Send you entries to competition@tradewinds.no or either of the postal addresses given below.

Competition rules

  • This is a maritime photography competition so only images relating to the merchant shipping industry are eligible. Images submitted may reflect shipboard life, show vessels or parts of vessels, illustrate maritime operations, news events or otherwise have a clear relationship to our industry while demonstrating the creative and/or technical skills of the photographer.
  • Photographs can be entered as digital images, prints or transparencies and be colour or monochrome. Up to 10 images may be submitted by each contestant.
  • Digital images should be submitted as jpg files of at least 1MB, print entries should be of a minimum size of 125mm x 175mm, while transparencies should be 35mm format or larger. Good quality scans of prints or transparencies are also acceptable.
  • Images should be the original work of the contestant and taken since 1 January 2008. Images should be without embedded text or date stamps. All entries should be accompanied by a caption showing where and when the photograph was taken, the name of the ship if relevant, the camera used and the name of the photographer.
  • Images should not have been digitally created or edited but use of filters, time exposures and other traditional photographic techniques is acceptable.
  • A contestant's occupation should be in the shipping or related maritime industries. Those eligible include seafarers, shipowners, shipmanagers, shipbrokers, marine surveyors and inspectors, classification and marine administration officials, port employees, search and rescue and coastguard officers, ship finance, marine insurance and shipping law professionals, as well as students on a course leading to a shipping industry career. The competition is not open to ship enthusiasts, professional photographers or naval personnel, other than those involved in merchant search and rescue or other services relating to merchant shipping. Employees of TradeWinds and related companies are also not eligible.
  • The winning contestant will receive a Nikon D90 digital SLR or equivalent camera and the TradeWinds Maritime Photographer of the Year trophy. The winning image and the name of the successful contestant will be published by TradeWinds soon after the closing date.
  • Copyright remains with the photographer but TradeWinds may publish submitted images in the course of this or future photographic competitions.
  • TradeWinds reserves the right to crop images for the purposes of publication.
  • Digital images should be e-mailed to competition@tradewinds.no with the attached images clearly captioned along with details of the contestant. Prints or slides can be mailed to TradeWinds Photo Competition, Christian Krohgs gate 16, PO Box 1182 Sentrum, N-0107 Oslo, Norway, or TradeWinds Photo Competition, International Press Centre, 76 Shoe Lane, London EC4A 3JB, England.
  • The closing date for entries for the competition is noon GMT on Wednesday 2 December. A short list of the best entries will be selected by the editor of TradeWinds with the final winner chosen through a readers' vote. Voting closes noon GMT Wednesday 16 December with the winner to be announced shortly afterwards.
  • In all matters relating to this competition, the decision of the editor of TradeWinds is final. TradeWinds will do its best to return submitted images if requested but is under no obligation for any lost or damaged.

About the prize:



The feature packed 12.3 megapixel Nikon D90 digital SLR comes with an 18mm-105mm zoom lens and should help the winner take even better photographs.

The successful contestant may, however, choose another digital or film camera or item of photographic equipment of equivalent value.