The Press Photographer Association of Ireland, the PPAI, is a volunteer-lead organisation that gathers members from across Ireland. They recently held their 43rd annual Press Photographer of the year awards.
Due to the pandemic, the awards, which usually garner glitz and glam, were held virtually. However, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Lexicon library is currently displaying 21 of the award-winning images in an outdoor capacity.
The Press Photographer of the year was awarded to James Crombie of Inpho Photography. Crombie won in two categories. In addition to winning overall Press Photographer of the year, he was awarded first and second place in the sports action and non-action categories for his Foggy Semi Final, and He Is Risen photos. The judges called his portfolio “A marriage of superb features work, creative portrait work and solid sports photography.”
Crombie’s image ‘Hurler on the Moon’ shows a powerfully striking view of the supermoon near Croghan Hill, Co. Offaly.
Speaking to Crombie about the inspiration behind the photograph, he comments, “this is something I thought about ten years ago and with lockdown I had that bit more of an opportunity to plan the picture. Being a sports photographer, I would generally have bookings nearly every day. With the lockdown, sports stopped so when I heard about the supermoon I hatched the plan to shoot this image. I was lucky because the night before and after it wouldn’t have worked. It was the perfect night.”
Being a sports photographer, Crombie was eager to illustrate sport throughout these unprecedented times. This was his motivation for his winning image, ‘Foggy semi final.’ Depicting the gruelling All-Ireland Senior Football Championship between Mayo and Tipperary, Crombie captures the somber event so many would have loved to witness.
“I was trying to show what it was like with the year that’s in it. Usually there would be 60,000 people there. This year, sport became more about the story of what was going on in Ireland at the time than the sport itself. All Ireland finals are such an Irish thing and I hope we never have one again with no crowds because it’s not the same,” says Crombie.
Social distancing guidelines meant that the photographs would have to be displayed in our outdoor setting. Speaking to PPAI President Paul Sherwood about this, he says, “this is the first year the PPAI has had images displayed outdoors, it'd be great to see this continue, and if possible, the full exhibition, which runs to approx 120 images could be displayed outdoors so that as many people as possible could see it.”
The exhibition will be on until earlier June and serves for an astonishing look back at the year 2020.
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