Winners of 2011 OSCE photo contest on sustainable transport and energy announced

Finding environmentally-friendly ways to produce energy, and transport goods and people, is crucial in safeguarding our future. A photo contest organized by the 2011 Lithuanian Chairmanship of the OSCE and the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities in May–July encouraged professional and amateur photographers to demonstrate their visions of the development of sustainable energy and transport—the theme of the 19^th OSCE Economic and Environmental Forum held in Prague on 14-16 September 2011.

Windmills, bicycles and solar-powered cars, walking and wind-surfing, sledges, waste incineration and rural power-generation devices, symbolic images of light and speed—the contest participants sought to illustrate the idea of sustainable energy and transport in a variety of ways.

More than 140 photographers submitted over 300 photos from 35 countries in the OSCE region, including Partners for Co-operation.

The 1^st and 2^nd prize winners and 12 runners-up were selected by an international jury. The public vote winner was selected from the runners-up via Internet voting on the OSCE Facebook page.

Manol Donchev from Bulgaria, a photographer with a background in psychology and press journalism, is the 1^st prize winner with his photograph “On the Other Side of Thinking” taken at a bicycle parade in Sofia two years ago.

“In my picture, I’ve shown enthusiastic, environmentally conscious people who gathered to affirm the usage of bicycles as the best way to move around a city,” said Donchev at the award ceremony held in Prague on the margins of the Economic and Environmental Forum. “I hope my picture will contribute a little to convincing the public that we need to work together to revert the situation that Sofia remains one of the least adapted for bicycle riding of all European capitals, one of the cities with the highest car accident rates, most traffic jams and least parking space.”

The 2^nd prize winner, Eleonora Kazakova from Kyrgyzstan, submitted a picture illustrating the introduction of mobile biogas stations to high-land pastures – jailoos – in mountainous parts of Kyrgyzstan.

Dimitar Petarchev from Bulgaria with his picture “Metro” was selected as the public vote winner.

The works by the winners and the runners-up will be featured at an exhibition in the Czernin Palace, which hosts the Forum.

The full gallery of the photos by the winners and the runners-up is available here.