Hilary Ratcliffe's Winning Image Of Mysticète
Milburngate has unveiled the stunning images from the winners of its Lumiere festival photography competition.
Elizabeth Woods’ Winning Lumiere Image
Scooping the prize for the best overall Lumiere photo was Elizabeth Woods, a singing teacher for Durham Music Service, for her shot of the Harmonic Portal installation.
The Harmonic Portal, a piece by Durham-based artist, Chris Plant was a mesmerising meditation on sound, light and texture, located at Castle Chare and Tenter Terrace, next to St Godric’s Church. The photograph, which was taken on Elizabeth’s mobile phone, portrays the beauty of the colour and light installation and includes the silhouette of her 12-year-old son Jonathan Woods.
Elizabeth Woods said: “The installation was beautiful and constantly changing colours, but this vibrant image stood out to me from all the photos I had taken. I am absolutely delighted to win and overwhelmed with all the social media shares and public response received through the voting process.”
The competition also offered a prize to the best image of the Milburngate-sponsored installation, Mysticète, created by design agency Top ‘la’ Design, led by creative director Catherine Garret.
The winner, Hilary Ratcliffe, a first time Lumiere visitor from Whitley Bay, is an examiner and tutor, and a keen wildlife and bird photographer. Her spectacular winning image, taken on a Canon 5D Mark iv, captured the stunning and strikingly life-like apparition of the whale emerging from the River Wear next to the Milburngate development site.
Hilary Ratcliffe said: “I am amazed, I love wildlife photography, but I never thought I would win my first competition with an image of a whale that’s not really there! However, the detail in the design of Mysticète really brought it to life and was a pleasure to capture on camera.”
More than 300 entries were submitted, with a shortlist displayed online before being judged by a Milburngate panel led by Gary Lintern, who specialises in dark sky photography.
Both winners picked up a prize of £250 worth of vouchers for Ramside Hall hotel and spa. Gary Lintern said: “It’s not easy to take such great images at night and we were very impressed with the superb quality of submission for the competition and after much deliberation were able to agree on the final two exquisite winning photographs.
“Many congratulations to both Elizabeth and Hilary for capturing the essence of the spectacular artwork installations of Lumiere 2019 in the beautiful city of Durham”.
Matt Leigh, who is responsible for the marketing of Milburngate said: “We always work hard to make the most of our Lumiere sponsorship and our this competition was the perfect opportunity for the general public to showcase their skills in a way that captured the real beauty of the festival. We were delighted to receive so many superb entries and I hope people will agree that the two winning images really are worthy of taking first place in their respective categories.”