STFC Photowalk 2014 winners

STFC has announced the winners of its 2014 Photowalk competition, which showcases some of the UK’s leading-edge science and world-class technical facilities.

More than 200 amateur and professional photographers took part across four STFC sites: the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) in Edinburgh, Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, the Chilbolton Observatory in Hampshire and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

Dr Andrew Taylor, Executive Director National Laboratories said: “This latest series of STFC Photowalks has been a tremendous success and the images produced help to capture some of the incredible science that goes on at our sites in a fresh and exciting way. We’re sure that the winning photographs will fire imaginations and raise the profile of the fascinating work that’s carried out at our sites”.

Over 1300 votes were received online with six winners selected from the regional shortlist of 40 images. and the following six winners were selected from that list by national and regional judging panels:

• National Winner (and RAL regional winner) - John Willoughby won £750 in vouchers with his image of the Polref instrument, designed to give a unique insight into the properties of materials on an atomic scale, in STFC’s ISIS Target Station 2.
• Online Winner – Mike Tyldesley won a trip to CERN for him and his 14 year-old son with his image of an STFC employee ‘at one with his machine’ in the Vacuum laboratory at the Cockcroft Institute, Daresbury Laboratory.
• Highly Commended - Katharine Barnes won £250 in vouchers with her image of the access service tunnel running underneath the Chilbolton Observatory in Hampshire.
• Daresbury Winner - Paul Worpole won £250 in vouchers of his choice with his image of a vacuum vessel with glass viewing port.
• UKATC Winner – Eric Begbie, a runner-up in the 2011 competition, won £250 in vouchers with his image of a light diffraction pattern.
• Chilbolton Winner - Mervyn Edwards won £250 in vouchers with his image of the 6.1m Antenna within the Satellite Compound at Chilbolton Observatory in action.

The winning photos can be viewed at www.ukphotowalk.org.uk. 

For those who are passionate about science photography: You can now vote online for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s (BBSRC) Bioscience Image Competition, Images with Impact at http://ilmt.co/PL/GOj