ILKLEY Camera Club’s Jack Sedgewick has won a young photographer prize in a national photo competition.
The Royal Horticultural Society announced this week that Jack, aged nine, has secured a top prize in their national photo competition.
Jack, who has been a member of Ilkley Camera Club for about a year, won both the under 11 category and is this year’s overall young winner.
His photo Fantasy Flowers is a combination of three photographs taken on a rainy day at RHS Garden Harlow Carr.
The judges praised Jack’s image for its “originality, high degree of creativity and experimentation”.
It was on a trip to Harlow Carr gardens in Harrogate in 2020 that he saw last year’s competition photographs on display and decided to have a go.
“I had high hopes for winning at first but there were thousands of people entering so then I really didn’t expect to get anywhere,” he said.
The RHS has said that this year there has been a record number of entries, possibly due to people being in lock-down
Jack has been a member of Ilkley Camera club for the last year and likes to compete in club competitions with his grandma who’s also a member.
Jack told us: “I started taking photos when I was five years old using my mum’s mobile phone, but now I have a Nikon Coolpix P510 camera.”
He says one of his favourite parts of the process is editing the photographs.
Jack and his family were sent an email saying he had been shortlisted, but it wasn’t until they saw his name in one of the national newspapers that they realised he’d won.
“At first I didn’t believe it, I thought it was a joke,” added Jack. “Then when I found out I’d not only won the under 11s but was the over all young photographer winner I was amazed and speechless.”
Fantasy Flowers is a combination of three photographs taken on a rainy day at RHS Garden Harlow Carr by Jack Sedgewick
His next ambition is to focus on animal wildlife and he says he might continue to enter competitions.
His advice for other young photographers is to take pictures that you enjoy and to experiment: “trying new things is fun and you don’t just have to take pictures that other people want you to take, just do what you want.”
Winners of this year’s RHS competition can be viewed at rhs.org.uk/photocom
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