The number of participating photographers in this season’s Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award (HIPA) increased by nearly 2,000, with a total of 32,712 participants, up from 30,878 in the fourth season.

The HIPA awards for 2016 were announced on Monday with the Grand Prize going to Antonio Aragon Renuncio, a Spanish photographer, who won this year’s HIPA Grand Prize of $120,000 (Dh440,000) for a moment he captured spontaneously of young boys playing with old tyres in the field in a village in Togo in Africa.

Most of this season’s participants (66 per cent or 21,627) registered as first-time participants, figures from the 5th season of HIPA show.

Ali Bin Thalith, HIPA secretary-general, noted that in just five years of establishing HIPA, the competition has successfully reached photographers from 193 countries, which is the exact number of registered countries at the United Nations.

The competition received a total of 80,420 photographs this year from 173 countries.

Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Emiratis and Indonesians made up the top five nationalities of photographers and enthusiasts who joined this season. They are followed by Egytians, Iranians, Russians, Italians and Brazilians.

Male photographers dominated the participants at 78.7 per cent or 25,734.

The celebration of all things photographic continues this week as the Dubai Photo Exhibition opens its doors to guests from today (March 16) to March 19 to showcase a selection of over 700 photographic masterworks from 129 photographers from 23 countries in a purpose-built temporary museum.

Head Curator Zelda Cheatle said this is the largest gathering of still photos from all over the world under one roof. Visitors can expect to see the world’s oldest selfie taken in 1840, unseen photos from the special collection of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Matoum, Dubai Crown Prince and Chairman of the Executive Council, and many more.

The Dubai Photo Forum 2, which will tackle different topics about photography, will be held on the same dates for free. Renowned career photographers such as Oscar Mitri, Shahidul Alam, Tom Ang, Henk Van Kooten and many more will share their insights in the forum.

Admission is free to the exhibition but only by registration. The museum opens to the public from 5.30pm-9pm on Wednesday, 10am to 9pm on Thursday with ‘Ladies Only’ timings from 2pm to 5pm, from 10am to 9pm on Friday and 10am to 7pm on Saturday.

Source:WAM