BBC PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR
PRESS RELEASE BBC PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR Max Pickering - Maximagery.com The international competition for the coveted title of BBC PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR saw the Buckinghamshire based Max Pickering of Maximagery.com winning the title. Max, who polled over 25% of the 37,000 votes to beat off over 24,000 other pictures to make it to the final. The final allowed members of the public to choose one of the images to vote for and the photographer with the most votes would be crowned; BBC PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR. World wide demand on the BBC voting servers had been so high that the BBC took the unprecedented step of extending the voting a further three days from the initial two. Normally found working on location in London or the three counties area of Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire on a diverse portfolio of commissions; wedding, events, proms, black tie and studio portraits, Max said; "I'm very pleased to have won such a prestigious title, chasing the aurora in the high arctic is about as far away from wedding, equestrian and studio portrait photography as you can get! There's no secret recipe of capturing the fleeting moments of the aurora magic, it's very similar to catching a momentary glance at a wedding, I call it methodical anticipation! I consider myself to be very fortunate, while almost everyone has access to a digital camera still very few have the facilities of a fully equipped studio, the time to spend getting all the details just right, or the experience to know when something wonderful is about to happen! But it's the passion and commitment that separates the ordinary from the extraordinary photographer. My passion comes from capturing images are going to be a permanent reminder of a memorable occasion that will make people smile when they look at them for years to come. I've got the best job in the world, I'm passionate about what I do and meticulous in how I prepare for it. My commitment is perhaps best demonstrated in that it was my sixth visit in seven years to the high arctic to get images of the aurora. "The temperatures were as severe as you'd expect in winter in that part of the world, with -25c being about the average during the six or seven hours I spent each night I was out waiting for the aurora storm to arrive. When the auroras do arrive, they rarely last more than a few minutes at a time. Each night I had three digital cameras to set up for the picture and then lots of waiting, but when they do arrive, the are the most amazing natural phenomena I'm ever likely to see." Max went on, "When the temperature drops below -20c, everything stops, it's like nature is holding her breath." The BBC competition continues to attract entries from hobby and professional photographers all over the world and remains the BBC's prestige photographic competition each year. Max's winning image, "Aurora shelter" was taken during a huge aurora storm earlier this year 150 km inside the arctic circle in the high arctic of Northern Finland. The location was close to the Russian border, near a small town called Muonio, famous for it's long snow season and skiing college that attracts aspiring cross-country ski champions from all over Finland. THE AURORA BOREALIS It's difficult to describe the aurora to someone who hasn't seen it. You can describe with a mathematical precision the interaction of a particle from a coronal mass ejection being trapped by the magnetosphere and then colliding with an atom of gas to give off a single photon. You can describe the scale of the 100 million of these collisions that are needed to make the aurora visible 100 miles below it on the ground. But what no pen may describe and no brush reveal is the awesome power and incredible beauty of these natural occurrences. The curtains of light that extend hundreds of miles across the sky fluttering in the solar wind and that they do so without a sound either from them or in accompaniment to them. It all unfolds before you with only the sound of your own breathing. In 1621, a French scientist, Pierre Gassendi, named them after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora. He added the word 'borealis' for the Roman god of the north wind, Boreas. "Dawn's north wind" otherwise known as the northern lights. Only normally visible around the geomagnetic north pole unless there is extreme sun spot activity when the aurora can be seen at lower latitudes. The aurora occurs between 35 miles and 600 miles (56 km-970 km) above the earth. It is caused by high-speed particles from the sun, (the solar wind), which are captured by the Earth's magnetosphere and then channelled toward the polar regions by the earth's magnetic field. The aurora can take the form of streamers, arcs, rays, coronas but perhaps the most impressive, the curtains of light. Although the most common colour for the aurora is green, red, blue, yellow and violet can be seen, the differing colours are due to the particles reacting to the various gases in the atmosphere as