Volga-Dnepr Group invites professional and amateur photographers to participate in international competition to help celebrate 25th anniversary

Leading aviation photographer Katsuhiko Tokunaga to chair judging panel

Volga-Dnepr Group is inviting professional and amateur aviation photographers to participate in an international competition to find the best photo images of its Antonov An-124-100, Ilyushin IL-76-TD-90VD and Boeing 747 aircraft to help celebrate the Group’s 25th anniversary.

This is the fourth photographic contest organised by the Group. The last competition in 2013 attracted entries from some 200 photographers from 30 countries, while the public website that invited votes to help choose some of the winners was visited by over 10,000 people from 100 countries.

Volga-Dnepr holds the contest to discover talented aviation photographers to work with. Helping to choose the winners in this year’s contest will be the world-renowned aviation photographer Katsuhiko Tokunaga, honorary president of the judging panel, and Marina Lystseva, a leading Russian aviation photographer, blogger and a former winner in the Volga-Dnepr competition.

Over the past 25 years, Volga-Dnepr’s journey has seen the Group grow from a small airline to a diversified international group comprising more than 20 companies, and become one of the leading experts in the international air cargo transportation market. The Group’s airlines – Volga-Dnepr Airlines and AirBridgeCargo Airlines - operate a unique fleet of Russian and foreign-built aircraft with outstanding cargo carrying capabilities. The competition aims to capture operational and architectural images of the Group’s fleet by photographers who share Volga-Dnepr’s passion and fascination with the world of aviation, and to honour the outstanding human engineering behind these iconic aircraft.

The 2015 contest will be divided into four categories; An-124-100 ‘Ruslan’, IL-76TD-90VD, Boeing 747, and Grand Prix. The winners in each category and the photographers finishing in second and third places will each receive prizes. The top prize will be a multifunctional camera backpack.

Open voting will take place online on the official contest website at http://photo.volga-dnepr.com/. The photographer whose aircraft image gains most online votes will receive a special Community Choice Award.

Photographers can submit their entries online on the contest website from July 20 until October 15, 2015.