14 March 2011

Three Bay of Plenty students are winners of Scion’s Student Photography Competition.  

Scion’s new Chief Executive Dr Warren Parker announced the winners at the Science in the Park open day on Saturday 12 March.

Alana Jeffcote, Finn Riordan and Layla Barker took the winning places with entries that were judged best for creativity and composition, technical aspects and scientific communication.

Overall winner is Alana Jeffcote, a student at Chapman College, for her photograph titled “Mind if I join you for a bite?”, which was taken in the college vegetable garden. The judges’ notes described this entry as “Scientifically most interesting with action demonstrating predation and bio-control.” Alana also won the Science, Years 7-10 Category.

Finn Riordan, from Te Puna School, won the Forestry, Years 7-10 Category for his photograph that was also taken at school. Titled “The Storm”, the judges said the image had strong composition with the juxtaposition of dead and growing trees.

Rotorua Lakes High School student Layla Barker won both the Years 11-13 Forest and Science Categories. Both photographs were close-ups of foliage, and the judges said light was well used in both with strong graphic composition.

Highly commended certificates were awarded also to Tess Harvey-Keyworth (Rotorua Lakes High School), Caitlin Skudder (Rotorua Girls High School) and Hamish Dodd (Mokoia Intermediate).

The competition was designed as a way of engaging older Bay of Plenty students in Scion’s biennial open day in an activity that brings art and science together and demonstrates how photography can successfully be used to communicate science.

The entries were all scrutinised closely by an expert panel of judges comprising Craig Robertson of Full Frame Photography, Rotorua; The Daily Post photographer Stephen Parker; Lloyd Donaldson, Biotransformation Scientist, Scion (and a winner in the 2010 Nikon Small World international photographic competition); and Richard Waldin, Information Manager, Scion.

The prizes include framed prints of the winning entries, books from top New Zealand photographers, a 3-hour photography tutorial and a digital camera.

Science in the Park is a free community open day hosted by Scion to bring science alive for people and to showcase Scion’s contribution to the Bay of Plenty region and New Zealand. The open day was hugely successful with almost 2800 people through the gates.