Hot Press' Mick Quinn wins major photography award

Ace Hot Press snapper Mick Quinn has been named among the winners of QEP Awards for 2005.

QEP Awards are highly sought-after among the photographic community, representing as they do the blue ribbon of photographic achievement in Europe. The awards are issued by the Federation of European Photographers and they designate the select few who receive them as a Qualified European Photographer.

All of the work submitted by Quinn in his presentation to the FEP was taken for Hot Press magazine.

“The criteria are very stringent,” Quinn told Hot Press, “so it makes it all the more special when you get it. I’m particularly pleased that I received the award for work that I have a real personal interest in, and that I’ve put a lot of time and a lot of creative energy into. This isn’t the sort of work you do just to pay the bills.”

Entrants for QEPs are generally already at the top of the profession in their home countries. The tough approach of the judges is borne out by a failure rate of 75% among those whose work is submitted. Only 173 photographers in Europe have been awarded QEP status. Mick Quinn is just the 9th recipient of the accolade in Ireland.

“The work submitted has to be individually compelling, but it also has to work together as a study,” Quinn revealed. “It has to be strong technically, as well as artistically and in terms of composition.”

The photographs which garnered the award for Quinn were all black and white studies of musicians in live action and included photos of Rory Gallagher, U2, Bruce Springsteen, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker and many more.

“Mick is a great professional, with a real eye for what makes a dramatic photograph,” Niall Stokes, Editor of Hot Press commented. “But he also has a real empathy with his subjects and I think that’s what gives the photographs he has taken for Hot Press over the years such resonance. He thoroughly deserves what is a very prestigious award from the leading lights of European photography.”

Prints of the award winning photos are available at the website www.rockartprints.com.