The Winners of SkyPixel’s 8th Annual Aerial Photo and Video Contest!

Skypixel Announces Winners of 8th Annual Photo & Video Contest

by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby

Today, SkyPixel announced the winners of its 8th Annual Photo & Video Contest. This year’s contest, co-organized with DJI, received over 65 thousand submissions – a 120% increase from last year’s event. The theme of this year’s contest, “The Story Behind,” urged users to share what mattered to them most through both their submissions and the reflections shared on their submission page.

The 8th Annual Photo & Video Contest was assessed by a Judging Panel of industry professionals including Claudio Miranda (Academy Award-winning cinematographer), Anne Farrar (Assistant Managing Editor of Photography for National Geographic Magazine), Phil Pastuhov (Director of Cinematography for films such as The Lord of the Rings), Hasselblad Master Benjamin Everett, Air Pixels founder Tobias Hägg, photographer George Steinmetz, Director of Photography Toby Strong, cinematographer Jingping Yu, and photographer Wang Ning.

This year’s video judging panel chose Bashir Abu Shakra’s “Why I Travel the World Alone,” an autobiographical short film four years in the making that combines sweeping mountaintop landscapes with Shakra’s childhood family recordings to share his personal journey. Judge Jingping Yu commended Shakra, stating that he “Cares about the beauty in front of him, but also places his courage and bravery in it, and the height is no longer limited to the magnificence in front of him. There is beauty in the dialogue he is having with himself.”

“Hundreds of pieces of footage had to be compressed into only four minutes of video,” said Shakra. “In such big projects, patience is the key. I kept my best shots unpublished for years waiting for the whole project to be completed. I even had to take semesters off in college just to be able to travel and complete this project, but that’s how much I believed in it.”

This year’s photo judging panel chose Khánh Phan’s “Floral Dress,” a bird’s-eye portrait of two women in a pond collecting a harvest of water lilies, with white and magenta blooms forming a floating floral dress. “A near-perfect color scheme with lovely waves of flowers moving across the frame, this beautiful image is so well-composed and balanced, it brings a sense of beauty and calmness,” said Judge Anne Farrar.

Phan captured the photo in her hometown of Long An, Vietnam, with the goal of sharing a tradition of her ancestors. “They have worked as water lily pickers for many years, having learned the craft from their mothers and grandmothers. I believe these women are most beautiful when working because labor creates value and happiness,” explained Phan. “They also let me express my mission to create what is hard to imagine, and I am truly grateful to them.”

As Annual Best Work winners, Shakra and Phan will each receive over USD $15K in prizes, including the Hasselblad 907X Anniversary Edition Kit, a trophy, and award certificate. The SkyPixel contest also awarded several other winners in both categories. Top 10 Photo and Top 10 Video winners will each receive the DJI Mavic 3 Fly More Combo (DJI RC Pro) or its DJI Credit equivalent, a trophy, and award certificate, with a total value of USD $4048. The 10 Nominated Prizes will each receive the Osmo Action 3 Adventure Combo and award certificate, with a total value of USD $439. Finally, the 10 People’s Choice Prizes will each receive the Osmo Mobile 6 and award certificate, with a total value of USD $159.

 

Read more:

• Drone Video: Skypixel Announces Short Film Winners
• 8th Annual SkyPixel Aerial Photo; Video Contest Opens Today!
• The Latest DJI Mini: Mini 2 SE
• The DJI Mini 3 Portable Camera Drone Revealed Today! Pocket-Sized, Under 249 Grams
• DJI Introduces the Mavic 3 Classic: Designed to be the Best Drone for Content Creators

Ian attended Dominican University of California, where he received a BA in English in 2019. With a lifelong passion for writing and storytelling and a keen interest in technology, he is now contributing to DroneLife as a staff writer.