“Capture the Heart of the Experience” – the winning entries of the first Subaru photography competition encompassing three categories of Action & Motion, World in Perspective and Essence of Subaru were announced and unveiled at the Motor Image Showroom Gallery.
The Grand Prize was awarded to MR. JACK TAN who received RM 2,000 for his entry entitled “Turning Heads” under the Essence of Subaru category. The 1st and 2nd runners-up who received RM 1,000 and RM 500, were and MR. NG WEI CHEAN and EN. KAMARULZAMAN RUSSALI respectively. The best submissions in each of the three categories who received RM200 each, were Mr. KELVIN NG, EN. AMIR RASHID BIN ABDUL RAHMAN and MR. ERIC OOI.
When asked where he obtained his inspiration for his winning photograph, Mr. Jack Tan enthusiastically replied, “The inspiration behind this shot was to capture my youthful imagination when I was 21 years old. Like every hot-blooded young man, I wanted the attention of beautiful women, and I had a vision of how I could achieve it. The vision is of me driving past a beautiful lady in a sports car, and because my presence was so strong as I drove past her, she could not help but turn to look. I imagined her hair and skirt blowing in the wind behind me, evidence of the speed and power of my car. This vision ultimately motivated me to buy my sports car and is the inspiration for “Turning Heads”.”
“I took about 30 shots before I came up with this one. It was difficult to get the exact shot I had in my mind – in fact, even this one is not exactly what I planned, but it’s pretty close. The most difficult part was probably the fact that we were shooting outdoors, by the roadside at night, with many cars passing by and stopping to see what we were doing,” said Jack, who is a Marketing & Operations Manager by day and dabbles in photography as a hobby. For the judges, Jack’s black-and-white still was an obvious choice for first place.
In her speech, Ms. Kimberly Low, Marketing Manager of Motor Image Sdn. Bhd. who presented the prizes said, “We decided to organise this contest with the objective of contributing to the local photography community by providing more creative outlets and a platform to showcase photography skills and talents. It was heartening to receive a total of 180 images with the World in Perspective category receiving the most number of entries.
“The entries were judged based on composition, creativity and technique by a panel comprising Mr Gareth Davies, founder of shutterasia.com; Mr. Nicky Mariano, Chief Operating Officer of Sales & Marketing for Motor Image Group, Mr. Richard Lai, Chief Operating Officer of After sales & Service for Motor Image Group and myself. The judging panel was impressed with the amount of talent that was evident in the entries which literally and figuratively captured incredible visuals and enabled us to see through the eyes of the photographers,” said Ms. Low.
The winning pictures are being displayed at the Motor Image Gallery for two months from August 1 with viewing open to the public. The pictures will also be displayed on the Internet at http://www.motorimage.com.my
Motor Image Sdn. Bhd., the official and sole distributor of Subaru cars in Malaysia kicked-off the inaugural photography competition on June 20, 2009. With the theme “Capture the Heart of the Experience”, the contest was organised in the spirit of capturing moments in life that matter.