And the winners are!
This year for the first time, Camp Ecuador ran an internal photo competition for our volunteers over team season. We chose three separate categories that we hoped would bring out the best in our budding photographers, Funniest, Inspiring and What Camps is All About. After receiving many entries and deliberating over countless cups of caffeine in the office we have decided on the winners.
Before we announce them, we’d like to show you some of our favourites that didn’t quite make the cut.
In the What Camps is All About category a number of pics caught our eye, especially when we read some of the stories behind them.
Roisin McCay Hines sent us this one of her team mate certainly looking like he was hard at work.
Helen Thomas caught this image of her teacher working with the students at Camp Maqui.
And Tiana Fabray-Smith reminded us that new and lasting friendships built over the month on camp are a big part of the Camps experience.
But we can’t leave this section without a classic Camps jumpshot. This one from Camp Costa was entered by Abbie Jones.
The Inspiring category certainly got us excited and inspired. There are SO many brilliant shots in this category, everything from stunning landscape shots to gorgeous shots of our community members. The animals in the Galapagos and Amazon also put on a good show for our budding photographers.
Charlotte Wynard loves a great landscape shot and submitted some beautiful shots but this sunset at Camp Costa had us looking at the calendar and fighting over who would visit our Gappers next month.
Roisin McCay Hines managed to capture one of the best ocelot photos we have seen at AmaZoonico.
And Henriette Hette Stainer had us literally gushing over her stunning shots taken at Camp Kuri Kuchu, including the horse shot at the start of this post. We’ll show you this one other one of the quinoa crops and save the others for later posts.
So without further adieu, after all of that teasing, the winners are:
Funniest goes to Henriette Hette Stainer for this hilarious shot taken at Camp Amazon. We love the look on her friend in the background and the excellent use of a heliconia petal as a beak.
Our favourite Inspiring shot is this one submitted by Evie Jones.
Yes, we are possibly (totally?) biased, but shots of the local children at Camp Kuri Kucho riding around on their horses get us every time. We particularly love the girl standing in the classic blanket-poncho we like to call the blancho. Pretty sure most of our volunteers wore one of these fashionable numbers throughout their time up in the Andes.
Evie submitted another photo this season that many of you have possibly seen already. As soon we received it, I busily went around updating all of our promo material for Ecuador. Evie has become our latest pin-up girl for this stunning shot of her and Jason sharing the world at Camp Amazonia.
Our final category, What Camps is All About was our most contested. Camps is about so much; sharing, giving, having fun, getting dirty and working hard, exploring new places, challenging yourself, learning about new cultures, trying new food, the list goes on and on. So after quite a lengthy debate we settled on this photo, also submitted by Henriette Stainer.
We are sure you will agree, there is just something about the energy, passion, fun and of course the impressive composition of this shot we absolutely love. This is definitely another shot our promotions team will be using a lot. This image captures the beauty and heart of what was clearly an extraordinary moment for all involved. My favourite parts are the upside down munchkin whose head cannot been seen and the fact that the girls glasses are coming off as the children excitedly attack her. The eye contact between our volunteer and the little boy is beautiful. I know I’ve said this before, there are many, many photos destined to be pinned to granny’s fridge and I think this is another.
A HUGE congratulations to our winners Evie and Hette and also to all the other special mentions. Apologies to all the others who entered and didn’t make the cut. If you have a photo from team season you think is better than the ones mentioned here, feel free to pass it along via facebook or directly to ally@campsinternational.com We are always on the lookout for photos taken by our volunteers. We always prefer to share your great adventures and images because without you we couldn’t do what we do.
All our love from sunny Ecuador xx