With over 100 photographs entered in this year’s competition the judges had a tough time deciding the winners. The judges commented on the high quality of many of the entries, clearly people had taken note of the judging tips offered on the IHT website.

The competition was kindly sponsored by The Worshipful Company of Paviors who provided one of the judges, past IHT President Billy McCoubrey -an avid photographer. The other judges included professional photographer John Thompson of Jet Photography, the IHT’s Web Manager Jason Munn and Deputy Chief Executive John Smart.

The judging panel spent a day at Endsleigh Street viewing the photographs and deciding the winners. The photographs were judged on quality, composition and suitability to the theme. There were many pictures that impressed the judges but congratulations go to………….

Corporate Competition
The winners of the corporate competition were Alfred McAlpine with a picture submitted by Melanie Clarke of River Usk – Newport. The judges saw this as an excellent example of photography, a crystal sharp image and a well-framed subject taken from a very interesting angle.

The 2nd place when to Stansted Airport Limited with Twilight at Stansted submitted by Julia Gregory, Transport Planning Manager.

TRL Ltd secured the 3rd place, with a picture titled Stokenchurch evening taken and submitted by Geoff Helliwell

Individual Competition

In the individual competition 1st prize went to a picture titled Repairs in the Mist entered by James Killeen. The judges considered that not only the quality and balance of the picture were exceptionally good but that the subject matter was extremely appropriate to the profession. James also won 3rd with a night picture of the Forth Road Bridge.

Second prize went to Nick Cottman with a night view of London streets titled 24-7.

All the winning entries for the competition can be viewed here, along with tips from the judges about how to improve your photographs for next year’s competition.

The IHT are keen to build up an online photographic library for the benefit of its members so if you have any photographs that are associated with transportation please e-mail them to john.smart @iht.org.

John Smart April 2007 

BSc C. Eng FIHT MICE

Deputy Chief Executive

Director of Technical Affairs

The Winners - Click on photo to enlarged.

Corporate winner Alfred McAlpine	Individual winner James Killeen	2nd Nick Cottman	3rd James Killeen

Tips from last years judges.

Fill the frame with the subject being photographed for maximum impact

Do not use to much unsharp mask on J pegs

For night photography make sure use a sturdy tripod to avoid camera shake for pin sharp photographs

Watch the edges of the frame for distracting elements...

Consider the cropping of dead space around the point of focus.

Look at the picture and see how many other pictures you can produce from that picture by using the crop tool.

Ensuring you have a decent file size for printing purpose the resolution for a 4x6 print is 1800 pix by 1400 pix

Make sure the Jpeg file is the correct size i.e. 3mb not 65kb

David Jones - Pro Photographer

Judge 2005

1. The author should ensure that he carries out any cropping that would enhance the composition of the image/relevance to the theme before submitting. The image is judged as received not on its potential for improvement.

2. Framing the image is crucial. Get in close, where appropriate, and preserve the size of the final image for quality and enlargement when printing. 1.5 MBytes should be regarded as the minimum file size. It is extremely unlikely that Mobile Phone Cameras (less than 5 Megapixels) will satisfy this criteria. Bear in mind that this file size will produce a good quality 8"x6" print.

2. Digital cameras are generally very portable and light. This means they are very susceptible to camera shake, thus care should be taken to ensure that the camera is held as steady as possible to avoid blurring of the image from camera shake.

3. Night time shots and timed exposures (longer then a quarter of a second) must be pin sharp to be effective. Ensure camera is held very steady on a sturdy tripod or similar. Hand held shots in these circumstances seldom work well enough.

4. Where submitting entries electronically please ensure that the Jpeg image file is attached as a separate file. Any document supporting the entry (with titles etc) can have the images embedded as well, but separate files ensure maximum image quality will be received.

5. Think relevance to Theme; think composition; think framing; hold firmly and steady (rest on solid non-moving object where possible); press shutter release gently; submit entries and who knows you may be next year's winner!

Billy McCoubrey

Judge 2005/06