Sophia Hutchinson, from Warwickshire has been awarded the prestigious title of Internation PhoTOGrapher of the Year in the 2022 TOG Awards photography competition, taking home the $500 cash prize for her photograph of Amber, a Dalmatian.
The TOG Awards is an international photography competition organised and administrated by That Photography Spot, whose community follow multi-award-winning portrait photographer Jessica McGovern. The TOG Awards runs annually and in 2022 garnered over 650 entries from 24 different countries worldwide. From these entries, Sophia Hutchinson achieved the overall title with the highest average score given by three highly acclaimed photographers.
The judges, Jessica McGovern along with Meg Loeks from the USA and Tracey Lund from the UK all worked on the entries throughout February to allocate scores for each image in a matrix system that outputted averages to decide the winner. As well as the overall prize, there were also three categories and seven subcategories up for grabs.
Jessica explained, “to achieve one of the top scores in The TOG Awards is a serious achievement, but to gain the highest collated score across nearly 700 entries is remarkable. We can only see great things to come for Ms Hutchinson, whose imagery was truly stunning.”
“The TOG Awards exist to find and celebrate talent within the photographic community, from all walks of life, no matter the subject matter or professional focus. We had a strict rule when judging to not cast bias for, or against, any specific style of work, yet still meet the criteria seen in international print competitions. I’m really pleased that we have done just that.”
That Photography Spot is an online photographic learning platform with a popular YouTube channel focussing on pet photography, so the number of entries including animals in The TOG Awards was not a surprise. The next cycle of The TOG Awards opens in November 2022 and aims to meet and exceed all targets achieved this year, including the grand prize pot.
To find out more about The TOG Awards visit https://awards.thattogspot.com or to view Sophia Hutchinson’s work, you can find her website here: https://petsbysophia.com/.
