On May 12, on the official website of the 7th Photo Contest of the Russian Geographical Society "The Most Beautiful Country", began the voting which will determine the winner of the People’s Choice Award. The name of the winner will be announced by the Jury on June 2. Anyone can choose the best photograph from among the finalists until 26 May.
To vote, it is enough to have an account on one of the social networks (VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook). The photographs-candidates are presented on a special page of the competition website. These works were selected by the members of the Expert Commission at an in-person meeting on April 26 from 65,661 photographs of 8643 authors.
Among the finalists there are ten photographs in each of the categories of the main competition and five in each of the categories of "The Most Beautiful Country through the Eyes of Children". Series of several photographs are presented in the “Photo project”; in the "Live Archive", two works together: archival and contemporary one. The selection took place anonymously; the experts of the Russian Geographical Society did not know either the names or the place of residence of the photographers.
You can choose any number of photos you like, but you can only vote one vote for each photo. When approving the results, the jury will take into account the number of votes cast and the experts' opinion on the honest nature of the vote. Any cheating is prohibited, although the participants of the competition have the right to ask friends and relatives for help.
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In 2021, the participants of “The Most Beautiful Country” will compete in ten categories: “Landscape”, “Wild Animals”, “Those Funny Animals”, “Russia from a Bird's Eye View”, “Many Faces of Russia”, “Taken on a Smartphone”, “Photo Project”, “Art of Wildlife (fine-art photography)”, “Live Archive” and “Magic of Water”. In addition, there are special prizes from the partners of the competition – "Russia in the faces of the older generation" and "Reserved Russia".
The Jury consists of renowned Russian and foreign masters of photography and cameramen Sergei Gorshkov, Viktor Tyakht, Maxim Marmur, Thorsten Milse, Florian Ledoux, Marco Urso and Philippe Ros; theater and film actors Sergei Garmash, Vladimir Mashkov and Anton Shagin; the founder of the Lumiere Brothers Gallery and the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography Natalia Grigorieva-Litvinskaya; director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts Marina Loshak; cosmonaut Ivan Wagner. The Jury is headed by Konstantin Leifer, photo editor, associate professor at the Faculty of Communications, Media and Design of the Higher School of Economics. The pictures will also be evaluated by the President of the Russian Geographical Society Sergei Shoigu.
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"The Most Beautiful Country" is one of the largest Russian photo contests, in which professionals and amateurs participate, regardless of age and place of residence. The only condition is that all photographs must be taken on the territory of Russia.
The competition was first held in 2015 and immediately attracted public attention. In seven years, the Russian Geographical Society has received 575 thousand works from 30 845 authors.
The main prize in each category is 250 thousand rubles. Young photographers will receive professional cameras as a gift. The works of the finalists will take part in photo exhibitions in Russia and abroad.