COMPETITION
MACS ADVENTURE
Hundreds of you entered, thousands of you voted, and now we can finally reveal the winners of our 2023 Outdoor Photo of the Year competition.
MOUNTAIN CATEGORY WINNER MARTIN HORNSEY
We launched the search for the 10th winner of our annual mountain photo award back in May, this year as part of the wider Outdoor Photo of the Year competition. And we’re now delighted to announce that Martin Hornsey (below) takes 2023’s top prize in the Mountain category with this dawn cracker from Side Pike, overlooking Great Langdale and the Langdale Pikes.
In a very close contest between first and second place (runner-up revealed on the next page), Martin’s image came out on top after impressing our judging panel and receiving a huge chunk of the votes in our online poll at livefortheoutdoors.com
“Honestly I’m blown away,” Martin told Trail. “I hoped this pic may get noticed amongst the hundreds of other entries, but I never expected to win. Just goes to show you don’t always need to have top-end camera gear to capture these magical moments – this pic was taken on my Samsung S20 phone!
“I’d already been out
hiking and camping the previous two days, and it was a very hot summer’s day, so I spent the afternoon swimming and relaxing at Blea Tarn. I could see Side Pike straight in front of me, and it looked like the perfect spot to spend the night, so I grabbed my pack and headed up.
“I had my alarm set early to capture whatever the sky would throw at me that morning. The lighting at dawn was lovely looking back over towards Little Langdale, with pinks and purples in the sky. I took a few snaps then got back in the tent to make a brew and pack my kit away. It was at this point, when I got back out of the tent, that the cloud began rolling into the Great Langdale valley. JACKPOT!” The standard was as high this year as it’s possibly ever been since we launched the competition back in 2014, but one of the main things that really jumps out about Martin’s image is the moment he’s captured. A recognisable Lakeland landscape waking up while most of the world is still sl
