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Photo Info
Maur Mere’s grand-prize-winning photo of an Airbus AS350 AStar perfectly reflected in a still mountain pond as it takes off to begin firefighting operations in British Columbia. Maur Mere Photo

Vertical Magazine reveals winners of 2017 photo contest

MHM Publishing Press Release | December 4, 2017

Estimated reading time 2 minutes, 51 seconds.

Freelance photographer Maur “Muzza” Mere has been named the grand prize winner of the 2017 Vertical Magazine Photo Contest.

Maur Mere's grand-prize-winning photo of an Airbus AS350 AStar perfectly reflected in a still mountain pond as it takes off to begin firefighting operations in British Columbia. Maur Mere Photo
Maur Mere’s grand-prize-winning photo of an Airbus AS350 AStar perfectly reflected in a still mountain pond as it takes off to begin firefighting operations in British Columbia. Maur Mere Photo

In winning the ninth edition of the prestigious contest, which celebrates the finest rotary-wing photography from around the world, Mere takes home the $1,000 prize and has his photo featured on the front cover of the December 2017/January 2018 issue of Vertical Magazine.

Mere is originally from Estonia, but has called Golden, British Columbia, home for the last three years. And it was from the mountains close to Golden that he took his grand prize-winning photo, from the picturesque Heather Mountain Lodge near Rogers Pass. The photo, captured during the most destructive wildfire season British Columbia has seen for almost 60 years, shows an Airbus AS350 AStar perfectly reflected in a still mountain pond as it takes off to begin firefighting operations.

The winning photo can be seen in the December 2017/January 2018 issue of Vertical Magazine (now available online), alongside the top three photos in each of the competition’s three categories, and over 40 pages featuring honorable mentions.

“The Vertical Photo Contest keeps on getting bigger and bigger, which makes our job in selecting a winner that much harder,” said Vertical publisher Mike Reyno. “This year we had over 1,400 entries, and as our readers will see in our latest issue, the quality was just phenomenal. Congratulations to Maur, and to all our winners — who should feel tremendously proud to have captured such great images.”

The category winners were Benjamin Schaefer (first place, Beauty), Sven Zimmerman (second place, Beauty), Sean Dundas (third place, Beauty), Brian Edwards (first place, Military), Ognyan Stefanov (second place, Military), Bart Rosselle (third place, Military), Bryan Dudas (first place, At Work), Michael Gilbert (second place, At Work), and William Murdock (third place, At Work).

The first-, second-, and third-placed photographers in each of the three competition categories have won prizes of $500, $250, and $100, respectively.

The 2017 Vertical Photo Contest was proudly sponsored by Bell Helicopter, Airbus Helicopters, Bambi Bucket, Eagle Copters, Metro Aviation, PHP, Safran Helicopter Engines, and Wysong Enterprises.

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