At sea or on land it is time to get out your camera for TradeWinds' Maritime Photographer of the Year competition.

Whether you are peering out from the bridge or looking at a spreadsheet in the office if you work in the merchant shipping industry you are welcome to enter.

In previous years we have had entries from seafarers, owners, managers, brokers, shipbuilders, bankers, lawyers, insurers and surveyors who sent an impressive range of images from dramatic seascapes to showering sparks in a shipyard and the human side of life at sea.

The TradeWinds' Maritime Photographer of the Year contests in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 attracted many hundreds of entries and we are hoping 2011 will be just the same.

The prize will again be a Nikon D90 digital SLR camera and the TradeWinds' Maritime Photographer of the Year trophy.

The winning entry in 2010
Last year’s winner was Hamburg shipping fund manager, Holger Laufer, with a dramatic photograph of workers at the Jiangsu Hantong Ship Heavy Industry yard knocking away the chocks prior to the slipway launch of a containership.

The previous year the winner was Daewoo Mangalia manager, Sebastian Depner, who scooped the prize with the aid of seagulls on a mooring rope of a soon to be delivered containership.

In 2008 the winner was Capt Charles Brown of OSG Shipmanagement with a shot of his 47,200-dwt products carrier Overseas Maremar (built 1998) about to sail under a rainbow.

The previous year the winner was Egor Ryabchenko with a photo of the ice encrusted 5,500-dwt sea-river cargoship Rusich-5 (built 2005) in the Baltic Sea.

The short listed entries from 2010

Click here to view:

Short listed entries from 2010

2010's entries.

2009's shortlisted entries,

2008's shortlisted entries

2007's shortlisted entries.

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 2010. 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 search and rescue, pirate interdiction 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@tradewindsnews.com 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, 25 Farringdon Street, London, EC4A 4AB, England.
  • The closing date for entries for the competition is noon GMT on Tuesday 29 November. 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 Tuesday 13 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.