First Europe-wide photo competition on safe and healthy workplaces launched on Europe Day

May 8, 2009 - PRLog -- All photographers - professionals or amateurs - are invited to participate in the competition and submit their photographs before 15 August 2009. An international jury of professional photographers will select the best entries from a special competition website. Prizes totalling € 7,000 await the winners.

The competition - entitled What’s your image of safety and health at work? -  is open to all EU citizens. The photography competition forms part of EU-OSHA’s Healthy Workplaces campaign and has its own dedicated website at www.osha-photocompetition.eu.

With this initiative, EU-OSHA encourages entrants to photograph images which portray safety and health at work issues in creative and imaginative ways. Participants can interpret safety and health at work in any way they choose: they are not restricted to particular subject matters or themes. Entries could depict work-related situations in different economic sectors such as agriculture, education or health care. The problems encountered by certain groups such as migrants or women could also be highlighted.

Jukka Takala, Director at EU-OSHA, commented on the launch of the competition: “Europe’s workplaces have changed a lot over the past few years. But even if we have experienced increasing awareness of occupational safety and health in the EU, along with greater efforts in making working conditions more fulfilling, we still have a lot to do. With this photo initiative, we want to see what safety and heath at work means to Europeans today and how they perceive it in their lives. We want to spread our message in an innovative and interactive way to more people.”

Selection process and prizes
A diverse and experienced jury composed of several leading figures in European photography has been assembled. This includes top photographers Mertxe Alarcón, Clemente Bernad, Miguel Angel Gaüeca and Ambroise Tézenas. They will be joined by Peter Rimmer, communication expert in occupational safety and health and formerly from the Health and Safety Executive UK.

Jury member Ambroise Tézenas, winner of the Leica European Publishers Award for Photography, says: “It’s a great photographic challenge and I am curious how people handle this topic. We look for creativity and technical quality as well as the photographer’s ability to portray the competition’s theme. We especially value photographs that draw attention to the positive aspects of safe and healthy workplaces”.

In total, four winners will be selected from the submissions. The first prize will be awarded €3,000. Second and third placed entries will receive €2,000 and €1,000 respectively. The public's favourite will be established through online voting on the competition website and will win €1,000.

A touring exhibition will showcase winning and short-listed photos throughout Europe. For more information on how to enter the “What’s your image of safety and health at work?” competition, please visit www.osha-photocompetition.eu.

# # #

ABOUT MEDIA CONSULTA
Media Consulta (MC) is a leading independent PR and advertising agency in Europe and a market leader in the areas of corporate communication, youth marketing and political communication. In addition to German branch offices in Berlin and Cologne, the MC network is the only German network to maintain its own subsidiaries and partner agencies in all 27 EU member states, the accession states and key business centres throughout the world. Within our integrated agency network, MC specialist agencies cover all areas of modern communication under one umbrella. This includes public relations, advertising and media, corporate publishing, interactive marketing, sports, youth and music marketing, event management and TV production.