The Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award (HIPA) has concluded the December 2022 edition of the Instagram Photo Contest, Winter, and the January 2023 edition Smiles.

A total of 10 winners were announced for both contests with submissions being received under the hashtag #HIPAContest_Winter for the December edition, and #HIPAContest_Smiles for the January edition. The contest winners hailed from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, India, Ukraine, Iran and the Philippines.

HIPA Secretary General, Ali bin Thalith said, “We always keep an eye on the reactions of our photography community and listen to their feedbacks each time we announce the winners of our monthly #HIPAContest. It is very overwhelming to know about their experiences and the unique stories behind their photos. We also appreciate seeing feedbacks coming from other experienced photographers, our previous contest winners and photography experts. Reviewing opinions and feedbacks from our community were very important for us to know the direct and indirect effects of this competition. In fact, our monthly Instagram competition became a sustainable and creative workshop for all photographers who would like to try and experiment in different photography genres, this contest became their monthly dedication especially for those who are persistent in following, participating and pursuing to win not only in our monthly #HIPAContest, but also in our annual photography competition.”

Bin Thalith added, “We purposely select the simplest ‘themes’ in the most creative manner to boost every photographer’s originality and imagination. We congratulate all the winners and advise the rest of our participants to continue their passion and dedication until they achieve their goals.”

Our winner from Saudi Arabia, Nasser Ali Alnasser @nasser01 said about her winning photo in the ‘Smiles’ competition, “I took the photo in Cameroon during a voluntary trip, the village children were amazed to see the camera and were chasing me to take a picture of them! I waited for this child behind the wall until he appeared laughing, so this was a beautiful capture. I participated a lot in the previous ‘HIPA’ competitions, and I was very happy to finally achieve my dream of winning. This gave me great energy for the biggest dream, which is to win in the annual competition. ‘HIPA’ is one of the largest photography awards in the world, and winning one of its competitions means a lot to me and provides me with tangible support in my artistic career.”

Fahad Alenezi @fhd_al3nezi, our winner from Kuwait said about his winning photo from the ‘Winter’ competition, “The winter in Iceland is very harsh, the temperature was -25 (below zero), and while we were looking for foxes, a blizzard came and prevented us from seeing them. We did not withdraw to the camp, but continued to search for foxes, and before the storm ended, we saw this fox and it was photographed in this difficult weather. It was a dream come true in the year 2019.

This is my fourth win in photography competitions on social media platforms, and I have won a number of international awards. Photography communities needed an official competition on these platforms to interact with them, and this is what ‘HIPA’ presented through its monthly competition, which spread and expanded everywhere. This is wonderful, and I think that this idea will gain more development in the coming periods.”

 

Winners of ‘Winter’ competition

Instagram @	Name	Country
fhd_al3nezi	Fahad Alenezi	Kuwait
ramisakar_	Ramiz Akar	Turkey
veysiisimsek	Mehmet Veysi Şimşek	Turkey
qn_travel	Yevhen Samucneko	Ukraine
being.darsh	Darsana Sajith	India

 

Winners of ‘Smiles’ competition

Instagram @	Name	Country
nasser01	Nasser Ali Alnasser	Saudi Arabia
kecags	Ekrem Kalkan	Turkey
boy_with_fuji	Aniket Pal	India
its.mohsens	Mohsen Sakaki	Iran
rylle214	Russell Pascual Cabanting	Philippines