World Photographic Cup 2015 – Official Results
…the winner of the 2015 World Photographic Cup with 4 medals and 9 top-ten finishes, for the second year on a row, is Team USA!
Montpellier, France, April 12th, 2015
The World Photographic Cup 2015 winners announced !
Gold medals went to Belgium, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and USA.
Defending champion Team USA won the World Photograhic Cup.
Individual winners and the Cup winning Team of the 2015 World Photographic Cup (WPC), sponsored by the FEP – Federation of European Professional Photographers, PPA Professional Photographers of America, the UAPP United Asian Professional Photography and the AIPP – Australian Institute of Professional Photography, has been finally announced on April 12th, in Montpellier, France, aside Les Rencontres de la Photographie Professionnelle, organized by the French professional association (GNPP).
27 national photographic teams entered the second edition of this unique, one of a kind Olympics-styled competition, from 4 continents (18 from Eastern and Western Europe, 5 from Asia, 2 from North America and 2 from Oceania).
The Golden medals in the six categories went to:
Ben Shirk (USA), for portrait and wedding (Ben also got a silver medal in the illustrative category!)
Diogo Freitas (Portugal), illustrative category (Diogo also won a bronze medal in the commercial category).
Koen De Langhe (Belgium), for Landscape
Amber Griffin (New Zealand), for the commercial category
Roberto Alonso Quintana (Spain), for Reportage/Photo Journalism
Also appears in the medals table: silver Andre Brito (Portugal) and bronze medalist Evgeni Kolesnik (Ukraine), for the portrait category; Kenneth Martin (silver, USA) and Mauricio Abreu (bronze, Portugal) for the landscape/wild life; Anuchai Secharunputong (Thailand), a bronze medal in the illustrative, silver Marcos Rodriguez (Spain) and bronze Joshua Holko (Australia) for the photo-journalism reportages, James Simmons (silver, Australia) and Antti Karppinen (bronze, Finland) for the wedding pictures, and finally Hannes Kutzler, (Austria), silver medalist in the commercial category.
While gold, silver, and bronze medals have been awarded to the individual creators in each category, teams were awarded points for top ten finishes. They received 10 points for gold, 9 for silver, 8 bronze and that follows to the tenth top image. The top ten positions were decided literally on decimal points which suggests a very, very tight team competition.
They finished the competition in a two-way tie for the 9th place Norway and Czech Republic, and in another two-way tie in 7th place France and Slovakia. All alone in 6th place, New Zealand. In 5th place Austria, and in a 4th place, just close to the podium, Spain.
The third place trophy, with 2 medals and 8 top-ten finishes, went to Team Australia.
The second place trophy, with 4 medals and 7 top-ten finishes went to Team Portugal.
And the winner of the 2015 World Photographic Cup with 4 medals and 9 top-ten finishes, for the second year on a row, is Team USA.
Congratulation to Team USA and all the winners. An incredibly close competition is exactly what the WPC committee could hope for, commented the Chairman of WPC Judging Committee Martin Vrabko, who also tanked the 27 team coordinators and the 15 international judges for their amazing job.. All countries having great entries and all countries dancing with tenths of points to determine the winner. It has been exciting to see such a great images coming from around the globe, and really hard to judge them!
Its a unique feeling coming out from a unique competition – added Giuseppe Scozzi, WPC Chief Executive. And it is amazing to see great photographers and their proud associations representatives standing tall and expressing the pride they have in their country and the passion in their craft. We are grateful to our French colleagues of the GNPP to have hosted and perfectly organized such a prestigious event.
The WPC CEO also announced that after the celebration made in USA in 2014, and France this year, the next hosting countries will be Australia in 2016 and Japan in 2017.
He finally added that 2 important companies related to the photographic market, CHROMALUXE and KOYLAB will be proudly supporters and friends of the WPC for the next two years.
The WPC was founded in 2013 as a cooperative effort by The Federation of European Photographers (FEP) and Professional Photographers of America (PPA). Its singular goal is to unite photographers in a spirit of friendship and cooperation.
The WPC is governed by an international committee, formed by Jørgen Brandt (Denmark), Dennis Craft (USA), Don Dickson (USA), Kylie Lyons (Australia), Don MacGregor (Canada), Noboru Okamoto (Japan), Bruno Vetters (Belgium), and Martin Vrabko (Slovakia), Chairman of the Judging panel. 
Each country can only be represented by one team, which is created by a national association comprised of professional photographers. Each team picks its own photographers and images to enter.
Teams submit up to three images in each of six categories: Portrait, Wedding, Commercial (including advertising, architecture, industrial, fashion), Illustrative/Digital art, Reportage/Photojournalistic and Landscape/Wildlife. Teams may choose to enter the images of a single photographer in multiple categories. However, no single photographer may have multiple images entered into a single category
OFFICIAL RESULTS:
INDIVIDUAL RESULSTS (Medalists and Finalists)
COMMERCIAL
Amber Griffin, New Zealand, Gold Medal
Hannes Kutzler, Austria, Silver Medal
Diogo Freitas, Portugal, Bronze Medal
Thomas Larsen, Norway, finalist, 4th place
Aaron Hockley, USA, finalist, 5th place
Eric Bernatets, France, finalist, 6th place
Stef King, Australia, finalist, 7th place
David Sievers, Australia, finalist, 8th place
Enda Cavanagh, Ireland, finalist, 9th place
Mike Hollman, New Zealand, finalist, 10th place
ILLUSTRATIVE/DIGITAL ART
Diogo Freitas, Portugal, Gold Medal
Ben Shirk, USA, Silver Medal
Anuchai Secharunputong, Thailand, Bronze Medal
Diamantino Jesus, Portugal, finalist, 4th place
Andre Boto, Portugal, finalist, 5th place
Lim Myeoung Hwan, South Korea, finalist, 6th place
Stig Håvard Dirdal, Norway, finalist, 7th place
Jesús Miguel Muel De Dios, Spain, finalist, 8th place
Kelly Gerdes, Australia, finalist, 9th place
Hannes Kutzler, Austria, finalist, 10th place
LANDSCAPE/WILDLIFE
Koen De Langhe, Belgium, Gold Medal
Kenneth Martin, USA, Silver Medal
Mauricio Abreu, Portugal, Bronze Medal
Otakar Metli?ka, Czech Republic, finalist, 4th place
Ján tovka, Slovakia, finalist, 5th place
Piotr Krupa, Poland, finalist, 6th place
Matej Michalík, Slovakia, finalist, 7th place
Martin Morel, France, finalist, 8th place
Scott Seeley, USA, finalist, 9th place
Gabriel Lipták, Slovakia, finalist, and
Roger Wandless, New Zealand, finalist both 10th place
PORTRAIT
Ben Shirk, USA, Gold Medal
Andre Brito, Portugal, Silver Medal
Evgeni Kolesnik, Ukraine, Bronze Medal
Peter Rossi, Australia, finalist, 4th place
Johanna Cavel, France, finalist, 5th place
William Branson, USA, finalist, 6th place
Brigitte Corn, Austria, finalist, 7th place
Natalia Ben?icová, Slovakia, finalist, 8th place
Frans Lahaye, The Netherlands, finalist, 9th place
Penny Nichols, New Zealand, finalist, 10th place
REPORTAGE
Roberto Alonso Quintana, Spain, Gold Medal
Marcos Rodríguez, Spain, Silver Medal
Joshua Holko, Australia, Bronze Medal
Jon Allyn, USA, finalist, 4th place
Jan Hetfleisch Austria, finalist, 5th place
Matt Palmer, Australia, finalist, 6th place
Milo Fic, Czech Republic, finalist, 7th place
Imants Urt?ns, Latvia, finalist, 8th place
Paul Wright, Canada, finalist, 9th place
Jim La Sala, USA, finalist, 9th place
Ingo Arndt, Germany, finalist, 9th place
WEDDING
Ben Shirk, USA, Gold Medal
James Simmons, Australia, Silver Medal
Antti Karppinen, Finland, Bronze Medal
Neil Williams, New Zealand, finalist, 4th place
Faustino Maldonado Román, Spain, finalist, 5th place
David Wheeler, UK, finalist, 6th place
Kim Min Suk, South Korea, finalist, 7th place
Kelly Tunney, Australia, finalist, 8th place
Miguel Rolo, Portugal, finalist, 9th place
Søren Friis, Denmark, finalist, 10th placeWINNING PICTURES AVAILABLE SOON ON WWW.WORLDPHOTOGRAPHICCUP.ORGPictures in this article are by Didier Law.
