Blog

At long last we are delighted to announce the results of our photo competition. Thank you all very much for your patience – the problem with having a famous Artic explorer for a judge is that they are always in the Artic – so in the end we decided to judge the competition ourselves.

There were lots of great photos  from all over the world to choose from and it was tricky to whittle down the final selection. We judged not just the photo but also the words accompanying it.

In the end, we decided the best photo was taken by Matthew Woods, 15, from St Edmund’s Catholic School in Portsmouth, UK. Matthew will be receiving a Nikon SLR camera in the post once we get back to England.

The winner of the best school category was Cardinal Newman School in Hove, UK. Cardinal Newman School wins a year’s free membership to Rafiki’s online schools network.

The runner up prize, in the best school category, goes to Ribston Hall High School in Gloucester, UK who get a year’s free membership to the Royal Geographical Society’s schools network.

The best international school was the Pan American School of Bahia in Brazil who win a Nikon digital camera.

A gallery of all the winning and highly commended photos with our comments will be posted shortly. If you like the photos please feel free to leave a comment.

Thank you very much to everyone who sent in photos – we have loved looking at them and hope you have too. All the photos submitted are up on our website in our special photo competition gallery.

A word from overall winner Matthew Woods:

I took the photo on a summer evening at Bosham. I had gone there as it looked as though it was going to be a good sunset and I think sunsets make interesting pictures. Bosham is a great place to go - it is peaceful, there are intersting buildings and lots of wildlife. You can also go there at different times of the day and different seasons and there is always something eye-catching to see. It is not far from where I live in the city of Portsmouth but you are really in the country and can get away from the crowds.

I took the picture from almost ground level as I wanted to get the grasses in silhouette and let the viewer's eye follow the channel of water to the buildings on the horizon. I like experimenting with pictures at different angles - it makes a normal view exciting. I hope to be a professional photographer when I finish at school and college so I am happy that other people can comment on my photos and help me to make them better.

Matthew Woods
Age 15
St. Edmunds Catholic School, Portsmouth.