Ageing - the bigger picture
The winners have been announced in an international photo contest from online photography community Photocrowd.com in partnership with the British Society of Gerontology on the theme of ageing.
This picture of Agnes from the series Eyes as Big as Plates is a collaboration between Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen and was selected in first place by the judging panel. The competition was also open to a public vote. First place in the Crowd choice was this shot an old man playing with his great grandson in a small village near Udaipur by Hardik Gaurav. Second in the Expert vote was this image of men keeping themselves fit early one winter morning at a city park in Kolkata, India by Sudipto Das. Federico de Gyldenfeldt's image of his grandmother won third place in the Expert vote. Leon was placed third in the Crowd vote for this photo of a 91 year old woman adjusting her sewing machine - one that she has used for many years. Hendi Syarifuddin from Indonesia submitted this shot of a man and his horse. Judges said; "This dark and moody image, with the theatrical nature of the lighting and the slightly sinister way the subjects are interacting with the camera gives the image its impact." It came fourth in the Expert vote. The photo by Alex Rotas is of German athlete Hildegund Buerkle, born 1934, as she heads for gold medal position and a new European and world record in the women's 100m dash, 80-84 year old age category. She was competing at the European Veterans Athletics Championships in Izmir, Turkey, in August 2014 and crossed the finishing line in 18.16 seconds. "An old woman in Maiduguri, Nigeria, sits quietly after enduring months of religious crisis that has ripped apart her village of Bama," says photographer Fati. The portrait came fifth in the Expert vote and 258th in the Crowd vote. "This picture was taken at Jaintapur, Sylhet. She is looking outside of her home waiting for someone or something," says photographer MMZ Khan, who lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh. "The treatment of the high contrast and block framing of the dark pillars brings to our attention the contrast in the physicality of the subjects, and is almost a metaphor for the passage of time - the young boy is striding towards the future, whilst the labouring head-drop of the old man tells its own story," said the judges of this shot by Marko Visacki. Nimai Chandra Ghosh captured this moment between old friends in Purulia, West Bengal. The image was selected in seventh place in the Crowd vote. The expert panel of judges thought this image of a woman helping a man through a muddy river bed at low tide by Joydeep Mukherjee, "could easily be used as a metaphor for age, but this is a real example of the effects the environment has on these subjects' lives." British Society of Gerontology Photocrowd.com