Agora’s #Urban2020 photo contest winner and finalists
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Agora, a free-to-use mobile app, hosts weekly competitions with cash prizes based on different themes. They just announced the winner of their #Urban2020 photo contest. 50 of the top entries were judged by Roc Isern, a Barcelona-based architectural photographer. Darren Reichel (@dlr on Agora), from Australia, was selected as the winner for his image of Brisbane’s Inner City Bypass freeway interchange. It was taken with a DJI Mavic 2 Pro at dusk in March 2019.
“I chose @drl’s photo in first place for its futuristic look with his incredible road junction in the foreground and the downtown in the background. The light, colors and contrast are just gorgeous,” said Isern about his selection. Read more about Reichel’s inspiration behind capturing this image, here. He’ll use the $ 1,000 prize to take his wife on a much-needed vacation from the stresses of raising their two-year-old daughter.
Agora is currently running photography contests based on the themes of Love, Celebration, Winter, Change the World, and Friends. It is available for iOS and Android. The title of the photo followed by the Agora username of the photographer and their home country. Captions are the photographers own words about their inspiration behind the image.
#Urban2020 Winner: ‘Myriad’ by @dlr (Australia)
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About this photo: With his photo, @dlr shows how Australia’s third-largest city is adopting a very futuristic and forward-looking feel: “My wife, daughter and I were driving through this area late one evening, and we both commented on how complex this freeway interchange seemed. I thought to myself that this would look particularly amazing from the air, so I decided to go back the following weekend with my DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone, to capture the scene from above.
This freeway interchange runs over the top of a local waterway known as Breakfast Creek, which is renowned for its mosquito population. Needless to say, I came home covered head to toe in mosquito bites. My body was itchy for a week! I was super impressed with how well this image turned out though, so I think that the pain of the mosquito bites was more than worth it. I’m hoping that Brisbane residents see this photo and feel a sense of pride, and realise just how quickly this amazing city and its urban infrastructure is growing.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ’Untitled’ by @banudiker (Turkey)
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About this photo: @banudiker snapped this picture while sailing on the Nile River, Egypt: “We were sailing away from Cairo’s noisy neighbourhoods. There is a lot of monotonous, colorless tall buildings along the Nile River in downtown. When I saw this building that is totally different from the others, I started to imagine the life of people living there.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ‘Organised Chaos’ by @leemumford8 (UK)
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About this photo: British photographer @leemumford8 snapped the incredible architecture of Hong Kong view from above: “Sometimes you don’t get the same sense of scale until you look at something from above. As the day turns too dark, I captured the hustle and bustle of the city streets.
As the street lights turned on, the roads lit up in this bright yellow-orange which I like to call the city’s veins. As the light was fading, a longer shutter was needed as I wanted to keep the ISO fairly low to help reduce noise. As this was an aerial shot, it was a fine balance before camera shake was an issue. The visibility on this particular was so clear, conditions I’ve been unable to replicate since.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ’Mind The Gap’ by @_kennyc_ (UK)
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About this photo: @_kennyc_ entered the competition with an iconic shot from the London Tube: “Heading out later at night in London was something I loved to do – it’s a stark difference to the hustle and bustle of the day, giving photographers with completely different scenes to work with. The underground in particular, is eerily peaceful compared to the mayhem of rush hour.
At the time I had recently been inspired by a number of street/urban photographers who had captured some stunning scenes from various subways around the world – so one evening I picked up my camera and ventured below ground. This particular shot is an idea I’d had in my head ever since I watched the fantastic short film ‘Mind The Gap’ directed by Luke Flanagan.
This iconic message/recording is played out throughout the Underground network and heard by millions of Londoners every day. It’s a message instantly recognisable to anyone that has lived in this incredible city, and something I wanted to capture in a picture. I knew the message wasn’t just played out through speakers, but painted in bright yellow paint on the floor of many tube stations. I thought getting a close-up shot of this while capturing the speed of a moving train would make for a pretty cool shot – I wasn’t wrong! While the Tube is iconic to many people around the world, ‘MIND THE GAP’ is iconic to Londoners.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ‘Trapped’ by @laboussole.seon (France)
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About this photo: French expat @laboussole.seon took this photo of the legendary Yick Fat building in October 2017: “Hong Kong is the most exciting and most contrasted urban environment I know. With this photo, I wanted to transmit the feeling to be trapped in a city, in the middle of tall buildings with a high density of apartments, and the sky seems so far away. I took the photo at sunset so that the colours of the sky are an invitation to peace and warmth, to contrast with the main subject.
It is challenging to take a photo in this place, as it is a famous spot, mostly for Instagramers. I went a couple of hours before sunset secure a good spot. Shortly after this shooting session, the management of the building has added a sign forbidding photo taking as it became too disturbing for the people actually living in the building. unfortunately for them, it doesn’t seem to have stopped tourists.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ’Untitled’ by @anhtrungqng (Vietnam)
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About this photo: Every day, thousands of motorcycles and cars crowd the streets of Ho Chi Minh City also known as Saigon, the largest city in Vietnam where @anhtrungqng snapped this shot during the evening rush hour.
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ‘Eyeshape’ by @marcelvanbalken (Netherlands)
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About this photo: Dutch photographer @marcelvanbalken said: “It was very bad weather, a lot of rain. So I had to take this picture with my camera in one hand and an umbrella in the other. The urban space in a play of light and shadow form shows an almost surrealistic decor. Pure black-and-white, in which the photography of architecture begins to take on abstract forms, reinforced by the apparently disproportionate addition of the man. If I win, I want to purchase a drone to be able to photograph urban spaces from a height.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ‘Ship city’ by @azimronnie (Bangladesh)
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About this photo: @azimronnie (no longer on the app) shares some facts about this picture taken in his hometown, Dhaka: “The 500 enormous vessels used to transport bricks, sand and other goods, are either being built or are docked for maintenance work in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Shipbuilders in Bangladesh began exporting their ships to other countries in 2009, and it has since become a growing trade in the area.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ‘Saigon-Vietnam’ by @nguyenvuphuoc (Vietnam)
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About this photo: @nguyenvuphuoc spotted these two female workers on Saigon’s under-construction new metro line: “When they saw me taking pictures, they asked me: Why? We are not beautiful, you should go and photograph beautiful girls instead.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ‘Nightscape in Rome’ by @henrydo (USA)
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About this photo: The majesty of Rome’s iconic symbol was perfectly captured by @henrydo: “Rome has been completely urbanized but they still kept many historic sites to preserve the history. I think it fits quite well with the hashtag. This shot was a composite of 2 separate images taken at different times in the same location. Many people thought a drone is capable of capturing the lit-up night sky but the technology isn’t that advance, yet. If I. win, I will donate part of my prize to a charity to fight plastic pollution in the ocean and save the marine wildlife.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ‘Radioactive ??‘ by @notanothermica (Belgium)
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About this photo: @notanothermica snapped this impressive shot while exploring the urban area of Charleroi, Belgium: “This is one of the most famous spots in Belgium for urban exploration. The door to enter this power plant is sometimes closed, which makes it not easy to get in. On that day, I was lucky because the door was open and there was some good light, which caused the cool glow on the metal of the powerplant. I wanted to place a person inside the power plant to had a reason for the viewer to relate to the photo.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ‘/–\’ by @wunderbilder (Germany)
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About this photo: @wunderbilder captured this photo on a trip to Rome: “During our visit, we stayed in a flat in this building and I found the staircase geometrically very interesting. There was no elevator in the building.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ‘Sinking in the fog’ by @borsch (Russia)
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About this photo: Russian photographer @borsch entered the competition with a foggy aerial view of his hometown, Moscow.
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: @paulaaranoa (Argentina)
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About this photo: Argentine photographer @paulaaranoa loved to explore the mysterious streets of Barcelona’s gothic neighbourhood: “The story behind the photo shows a character who is walking through a dark path, however the light is wrapping itself around him. On this day, the light was perfect. I watched how the people walking by were wrapped by the light, I spent at least an hour in the same place until the light changed… it was a unique spectacle and I consider myself privileged to have witnessed it.”
#Urban2020 Top 50 Finalist: ‘Can’t stop won’t stop’ by @theliamman (UK)
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About this photo: @theliamman shot this photo nearby the telephone box outside St Paul’s Cathedral, London: “I wanted to transmit a sense of adventure. Cities come alive at night and I wanted to capture that bustling energy as the day turns to night. The top of this phone box was filthy, if you want to do the same photo I recommend wearing clothes that you don’t wear often.”
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)