News

What has happened?

The image Souls Tied by Paul Killeen has been judged winner of the Black and White category in LPOTY 2022. Yesterday, Sunday 23 October, it was brought to our attention that Paul’s image was also awarded winner of the World Landscape Photographer (WLP) 2022 awards.

Paul’s image was submitted to LPOTY on 29 April 2022. Entries for LPOTY closed on 5 May 2022. Judging for this category finished and the winner was decided on 24 June 2022, and assets and book preparation began immediately.

Paul entered the same image into WLP in the middle of May 2022. Winners of WLP were announced on 2 July 2022, after LPOTY judging was complete.

What do the T&Cs say?

2c) Images that have won an award in a major competition (including previous Competitions), or that have been entered in such a competition where the results are pending, are not eligible for entry.

d) Once entered into the Competition, identical images must not be entered into any major competition whose results are announced prior to 23rd October 2022 until the entrant is informed by LPOTY that the image has not reached the next stage of judging.

e) LPOTY reserves the right to decide if a competition is ‘major’ and their decision is final.

What has been decided?

This is a difficult situation, where we believe no party has acted deceitfully or maliciously. An unwitting mistake was made, where Paul entered WLP without fully considering the implications of a potential LPOTY award.

After discussions with a number of people, including Paul Killeen, LPOTY has decided that Paul will remain the category winner for Black and White 2022.

However, due to the T&Cs being breached, Paul will not receive the category prize of £1,000.

Where will the prize money go?

The prize money will be split between two charities.

£500 will go to the Disabled Photographers Society.

£500 will go to Brain Tumour Research, in honour of the inspiration behind Paul’s image.

What about future competitions?

During the entry and judging periods, we have to trust that all photographers abide by the rules and T&Cs. We are going to review our T&Cs to ensure they are clear for entrants.

There are many photography competitions in the UK and internationally. Whilst we do our best, it is difficult to cross-check the many hundreds of images that are shortlisted against winning images of the many other competitions that currently run. The turnaround time for everything after winners being decided is very short, and we are a very small team. This is something we will consider how to manage moving forward.