Resolution

The 2006/2007 winners of the PIC Award are Kate Wilson and Jaskirt Dhaliwal. Kate has just completed a BA Honours degree in Photography at Nottingham Trent University and Jaskirt is in her final year of a BA Honours in Communication, Culture and Media, Photography and Digital Imaging at Coventry University.

Financial and Company Assistance for the Project

Kate was awarded £1000 and she was also generously assisted by industry companies who helped sponsor her. Canon and Intro2020 serviced her cameras free of charge; Sigma supplied a polarising filter; Hama supplied memory cards; and Kodak gave colour and black and white and slide film.

Jaskirt was awarded £700. Noritsu and Palm Labs generously supplied all the processing and printing for her project.

The Judging Panel

We are grateful to the following volunteer judges: Gerry Dingley, PIC Chairman of the Directors; Siobhan Woods (the daughter of Jack Jackson whom the Award was originally was set up to honour) and Andrew Brewerton, Chairman of the HEAD Trustees (the charity which administers the Award).

Presentation of the Work

Kate Wilson and Jaskirt Dhaliwal will present their work to members of the photographic and imaging industry and trade press on Thursday 11 January 2007 at the Ramada Hotel, Watford.

Their work will also be on display at Focus on Imaging, NEC, Birmingham from 25 - 28 February 2007 (courtesy of Mary Walker Exhibitions Ltd).

Kate Wilson’s Project

Palm Oil has become one of the largest exports in South East Asia, taking over from Rubber. In Malaysia alone Palm Oil plantations cover 4 million hectares which only twenty years ago were purely ancient forest inhabited by indigenous peoples. Palm Oil monoculture in Indonesia is expanding quickly, the aim being to take Malaysia’s place as the world’s largest Palm Oil producer by the year 2012 and to triple its plantations in 15 years. The use of this oil has increased because of demand from large companies and multi national corporations such as Nestlé, Cadbury, Walkers and Tesco, where it is labelled as ‘vegetable oil’ most of the time, and is now included in 1 in 10 of the products on our supermarket shelves. Soon it will also be in our petrol tanks as bio-diesel, a renewable, green alternative to fossil fuels and will be in even greater demand.

Indonesia and Malaysia are good examples, or bad, of how a country can increase exports and GNP through the depletion of its natural resources, particularly forests. It is also becoming an ever increasing threat to the natural habitat of Orang-utans.

The Orang-utan Foundation is a charity which was set up in 1986 in America by Dr Birute Galdikas, the world’s leading expert on Orang-utans. It was established in the UK in 1991. Its main camp is based in the heart of the Tanjung Putting National Park, ‘Camp Leaky’. The National Park consists of 4000,018 hectares located on the south of Borneo. Kate has visited the camp base and area to look at how the borders of the National Park are under constant threat from the invading Palm Oil companies.

Tanjung Putting National Park cares for ex-captive, orphaned and injured Orang-utans and operates a rehabilitation programme that returns Orang-utans to a life in the wild. Between 1992 and 2003 alone, the natural habitat of Orang-utans has declined by more than 5.5 million hectares. Kate travelled through the forests and parks to areas which have been destroyed and cut down, and the areas around the National Park, right up to the border which are covered by mile upon mile of Palm Oil plantations. She has landscape shots of these regimented destructive and controlled monocultures which soon will account for up to 30% of the land use of this island.

When she was in Kalimantan she photographed a lot of the forest fires which continue to rage there. There is an estimated 1 million hectares on fire (December 2006), the Indonesian government are swamped by the scale and have had Russian aircraft and Indonesian planes dropping water bombs. It is estimated that 1000 Orang-utans have died and are travelling towards the settlements and plantations on the boarders where they are being killed as they are seen as a threat to the crop of Oil Palm. These fires were mostly started deliberately by large Oil Palm companies and farmers, despite 'slash and burn' being Illegal in Indonesia. A few have been arrested in the last few months including one Chinese plantation owner.

Kate finds this so devastating and heart breaking: and would love to go back and help or to continue to photograph. Visibility was down to 100m in some parts of Kalimantan and everyone was suffering from breathing problems. She witnessed Orang-utans falling asleep in the trees and falling docilely as they were slowly suffocated by the smoke. These are peat fires so they are burning the dry desert of a so called 'rainforest' underground by 1m in some parts. The fires spread so fast and dangerously and trees crash sporadically all over the park.

Kate also visited the silicon mines which were on the opposite side of the river from the park and which are slowly polluting the rivers. These vast areas of land which are dry and now desert which are being mined by poorly paid workers, but the land is totally destroyed and is unlikely to recover.

This is some of the information, which Kate has gathered, and she has images of the plantations, mines, fires, plywood factories on the rivers and the Orang-utans.

Jaskirt Dhaliwal’s Project

The idea that some of the nation’s best female footballers could pass you on the street and you would not know them is a telling fact in a world where male footballers are ranked as celebrities. Male football is a commercial, corporate and business enterprise, with the media waiting on its doorstep for a new headline - the exact opposite of female football.

Female football players have no recognition, most have to pay to play and it is very much at grass roots level. Women’s football is without all the weight and baggage male football carries. It is played for the love of the game and these women have full time jobs, go to university and still pull on the shirt for club or country and in some cases both.

What Jaskirt has explored is the identity of the female footballer, how when seeing a photograph of Faye White, for instance (the England captain), you would not imagine there is anything special about her, that she is not the female equivalent of David Beckham. Or Karen Carney who is a year younger than Wayne Rooney, who at the same time as competing for England in last year’s European Championships was also sitting her A Level exams.

There is a deception, in a sense, because these women look like your best friend, your average student, the woman you sit next to on the bus… and they have no airs and graces about them, but surprisingly they are all of these things, yet also England’s best footballers on the weekends.

To bring this message home, Jaskirt has explored the comparison of men’s football and the simplicity of women’s football. The huge expansive stadiums which fill with thousands of fans week in week out, and women’s football where they get a Sunday league football match turnout. The lines on a pitch, simple clear goal posts, which depict the simplicity of football, against the thousands of seats in a football stadium.

Jaskirt has also photographed portraits of these women and given accompanying text so that the viewer will not only realise what they look like, but what their achievements are.

Jaskirt’s first interest was sparked from her own passion in football, and as a voluntary reporter for Birmingham City Ladies for BBC Birmingham online, she began to understand the situation and state of women’s football. She has also been working on a short documentary on the ‘day in the life of’ a female footballer, for BBC local TV. Now being a fan who attends matches every week, she sees the excitement in the air which the game brings, despite its lowly status. And how a top division side littered with England stars can be crushed by one blow from their male counterparts (as was the case with Birmingham City Ladies).

Jim Gooley, Director of US Women’s football W League Champions New Jersey Wildcats says “You (English football) are where we (USA) were twenty years ago. To men who follow football you are an aberration… today. Don’t beg, don’t whine. Simply ask the caveman to step aside. Then play to win. You command no respect until you defeat strong opponents. Challenge your competition to improve and demand only the best from yourself. As for the future, young women will follow you when you earn your supper.”

What Gooley says is true, but US football is primarily thought of as a women’s game, where the opposite is true in this country. Then the question arises that if money and popularity from the media and commercial sponsors did filter through to women’s football, would it become a scaled down version of men’s football in this country? And importantly would it lose the vital ingredients of what makes it what it is today?

In a time when male football has big money thrown at it, it is fantastic to see the flip side where in women’s football there is no money, but all the passion, commitment, dedication and love for the sport that there can be.

The Winner’s Contact Details:

Kate Wilson
Telephone 01285 720856
Mobile 07768 941820
Email: wilsonkate@hotmail.com

Jaskirt Dhaliwal
Telephone 0121 420 2847
Mobile 07834 207099
Email: jaskirt.dhaliwal@hotmail.com

Images can be sent to the press on request for the purpose of promoting the Award and the winner’s work.

1. Presentations on 11 January 2007

The presentations are immediately after lunch at the Ramada Hotel, Watford. Press members are cordially invited to lunch and to the presentations.

2. History and Purpose of the Prize

The Prize was established in 1992 by the former BPIA, whose members now form part of PIC, when all companies agreed to pay substantial capital funds to establish a scholarship scheme. PIC represents businesses distributing a wide range of photographic and imaging equipment and materials and its member companies vary in size from multi-nationals to small specialised concerns (see contact details of members and their products on the web site: www.pic.uk.net).

The Award was known as the Jack Jackson Award until January 2004. Jack Jackson was a well-known and highly respected member of the photographic industry who died in 1991 after many years membership of the BPIA. The Award recognised his vitality and encouragement of young people. As fewer people now remember Jack, it was decided to rename the Award as the Photo Imaging Council Award, in recognition of the many who give their time and efforts to serving the Council. The Prize is unique because it promotes no brand labels, being generically funded by the industry. This gives singular freedom to prizewinners to develop projects in the way they see best.

The scholarship scheme was administered by the Foundation for Higher Education in Art and Design (HEAD Trust). The HEAD Trust, a registered Charity, is dedicated to the improvement of visual education and to supporting students of art, craft and design. The value of the scheme was augmented by a government grant through the Business Sponsorship Incentive Scheme (BSIS) and the resulting income enables about £2,000 to be awarded each year, as one or several lesser sums according to circumstances. The scheme has been kept deliberately simple so that the overwhelming majority of the monies generated by the capital funds are paid to the beneficiaries rather than lost in administration costs.

The scholarship was available to students undertaking higher education in any discipline of art and design to fund a project “where the use of photography would make a difference” (there are over 20,000 students in nearly 70 colleges who are eligible to apply). PIC members deliberately did not make the scope of the project more specific, believing that the use of photography helps to highlight project situations. The scheme will end in 2007.

3. Recent Previous Winners

• 2005/06 – the winner was Charlie Stewart who visited Nias, one of 17,000 islands in Indonesia, to examine the effect of the tsunami and other on-going natural disasters and the importance of charity work in recovery.
• 2004/05 winners were Rebecca Dearden, who produced a series of life-size, full-body portraits of blind and partially-sighted people and worked with a range of organisations to explore ways of making tactile portraits from these images, and Christopher Davis who worked with the Mother Teresa Society and its maternity clinic in Pristina, Kosovo

• 2003/04 winners were Belinda Lawley whose project was on telemedicine – bringing heart care to the poor in rural India - and Fiona Campbell whose project took a look at the world of masters athletics showing mature athletes who had reached their goals irrespective of age.

• 2002/03 winners were Marcello Bonfani - whose project was to document the world’s biggest ship breaking complex of Alang, on the Indian coast of Gujarat - and Aubrey Wade, whose project concerned The Buddy Scheme – Holland’s programme to integrate unaccompanied juvenile refugees.

• 2001/02 winners were Harjeet Kaur, whose project Dark Tales at Bedtime looked at perceived women’s roles in society by reflecting on the nature of narrative using old fairy myths, and Tina Stallard who depicted children with a range of disabilities, of different ages and from different social backgrounds.

• 2000/01 winners were Ikuko Tsuchiya for a photographic documentation of therapeutic community life in Botton Village, North Yorkshire, home to UK adults with learning difficulties and co-workers from all over the world and Marc Newton whose project was on Bondway, a London housing shelter for homeless men.

All prizewinners went on to develop their interest in photography, some embarking on a photographic career, others using photography as an adjunct to their career. Work has been placed in the Sunday Times Magazine, the New Statesman, the Photographic Journal and the British Journal of Photography among others and several have won further scholarships such as the Jo Spence Fellowship. All presented their work to company representatives and to the trade press and all made useful contacts for their careers through winning the Prize.

4. Further information, contact:

Pam Hyde
Photo Imaging Council
Orbital House
85 Croydon Road
Caterham
CR3 6PD
Tel 01883 334497
Fax 01883 334490
Email pic@admin.co.uk
Web www.pic.uk.net

The Photo Imaging Council

The Photo Imaging Council, or PIC, represents a wide spectrum of companies on the supply side of the photo-imaging sector based in the UK. This is an industry worth an estimated £4 billion to the British economy.

There are around 110 leading manufacturers, importers, exporters and photo waste companies. Several of the major trade and professional organisations are also affiliated to the organisation. PIC interests’ range across cameras, film, camera phones, memory cards, photo printers, chemicals, minilabs, accessories, specialist services and professional photography.

PIC is committed to improving the environment in which our members do business, promoting their interests through lobbying and supplying value added services. Membership provides access to industry information and market trends, networking and business opportunities and other services.
PIC has close ties with many counterpart associations worldwide.