One hundred of the best amateur photographs of this year’s Volvo Ocean Race stopover in Galway are on display this weekend.
The photographers were chosen from the 17,000 entries in the LookWest.ie & Pix.ie competition as part of the Volvo festival.
The photographs, which will be on display from tomorrow until Sunday in Merchant’s Hall on Merchant’s Road, were the best 100 in the competition that smashed the previous record of uploaded photos from an Irish event.
Joanne Grehan of competition sponsors, the Western Development Commission, says the competition was a “fantastic success”.
“It was different from the more traditional photographic competitions in that all of the photographs were uploaded onto the photo sharing website Pix.ie The previous upload record for an Irish event was 8,000 photos, but we set a target of 10,000 to break that record and this really captured the imagination of the people of Galway and visitors to the city for the festival. The end result was that more than 17,000 photos of Galway were uploaded, making it Ireland’s largest ever photo sharing project.”
The competition was judged by marine sports photographer David Brannigan who followed the race around the world. All of the shortlisted pictures were selected to reflect the themes of the Volvo Ocean Race visit to Galway and how this unique event interacted with the city, its people, and visitors. The photographs capture the opening ceremony, the boats, the air show, the entertainment, and the excitement and fun of the race village.
The photo exhibition is being staged by the WDC in collaboration with Volvo organisers Let’s Do It Galway. Admission is free and open to the public from 10am to 6pm each day.
