It wasn’t easy, but after much agonizing and deliberation, the list of entries for the Hot Press Sony Xperia photo competition has been hammered down to 30 brilliantly talented individuals, who are in with a chance of joining Team Hot Press at this year’s Electric Picnic festival as our official Sony Xperia™ photographer.

“The quality of the entries was brilliant,” Hot Press editor Niall Stokes said. “Some of the work submitted really is stunning, and so the judges had a very, very difficult task, producing a short list. There were really good entries that didn’t make the final 30 – which is tough. But that is in the nature of competitions like this.”

With Electric Picnic freshly sold out, and the excitement mounting by the hour, the lucky winner will get the chance to take in the Stradbally spectacular through the lens of the wonderful, water resistant, NFC-enabled Sony Xperia™ Z. The moments captured will be given pride of place in their own double-page post-Picnic Hot Press spread.

First up, though, the winner will receive their Sony Xperia™ Z with 13MP camera, HDR video and 1080 Full HD front camera.

And the shortlist is as follows (roll of drums):

Amanda Lowry
Owen Humphreys
Aoife Ni Shuilleabhain
Jozef Voda
Joe Butler
Gerard Spierin
Tony Reddington
Martini Pics
Laura Hogan
Jason O'Callaghan
Matt Lougherey
Philip Kidd
Katie Healy
Sam Murphy
Rachel Hegarty
Aidan Kelly Murphy
Lisa Sterling
Tommy McArdle
Vicky Garnett
Paul Mahon
Paul Dowd
Patrick McDonald
Eoin Kirwan
Sean Conroy
Rory Sugrue
Alison Mackey
Simon Curran
Sophia Harding
Declan Courell
Chanele McGuinness

You can view a wonderfully random walkthrough of the shortlisted entries here.