Gary snaps up a hat-trick of top picture awards
HIGHLAND News Group photographer Gary Anthony scored a hat-trick at the Highlands and Islands Media Awards last week.
The 48-year-old, who’s been working in the industry for 30 years and has been with the HNG publishers Scottish Provincial Press for the last seven, scooped the prestigious Journalist of the Year gong along with Photographer of the Year and Top Shot of the Year prizes. His triple win came just a week after he picked up the Scottish Provincial Press Photographer of the Year award.
In a cruel twist of fate, Gary missed the glittering ceremony at the Drumossie Hotel in Inverness on Friday night due to illness, but he was still chuffed with his haul.
He said: "The texts started filtering through while I was lying under the duvet. "It feels like a pinnacle, and it’s great for a photographer to win Journalist of the Year because we’re out on the front line as well."
Gary’s top shot of the year was a silhouetted image of Inverness MP Danny Alexander and Alistair Darling launching the local Better Together campaign at a business breakfast in Inverness.
His portfolio also included an unusual view of the Remembrance Sunday parade and an action shot of North heavyweight boxer Gary Cornish landing the knock-out blow against Paul Butlin, a picture which he describes as his personal favourite. He also vivdly captured the urgency of rescuers trying to save a stranded pilot whale at Rosemarkie contrasted in another shot by the serenity of one boy’s delight at the coming of snow.
The talented photographer bagged £700 total prize money with his awards, £300 of which he has decided will be donated to a charity for children in the Syrian conflict.
The Barron Trophy for services to journalism went posthumously to Clive Dennier, an Inverness-based reporter who died in a hillwalking accident last year.
