The 6th Annual Smart Photography Awards were presented last night at a glittering function, held at the Crystal Ball Room of Hotel ‘The Lalit’, (formerly Intercontinental, The Grand) in New Delhi last evening. The awards night saw the who’s who of the Imaging Industry in attendance, which included corporate head honchos, overseas multinationals captains, trade representatives, AIPITIA offi cials and renowned professional photographers. By far, Canon was the clear favorite, netting six awards in the SP awards and two in the CA awards category as well.
The SP Awards celebrates excellence by honoring the best products in the imaging industry, based on the reviews done in the preceding year (2010) in the Smart Photography magazine. As usual, the SP Awards were preceded by the Computer Active Awards (which is a sister-IT platform of the NextGen Publishing Group). In his opening speech at the venue, Hoshang Billimoria, CEO, NextGen Publishing
Ltd., emphasized on the fact that the last year was an excellent one for the imaging industry and particularly lauded the growth of the D-SLR market in India. Clearly, India is poised to become one of the top fi ve imaging markets in the whole world. While on the subject of Awards, he highlighted the fact that the SP Awards have over the years come to be identifi ed as the benchmark for the imaging industry. This is because the awards are certifi ed by the SP technical bench, only after subjecting the product to multiple tests.
Noticeably, the one company that hogged the limelight at the Awards was Canon, which apart from winning five other awards, bagged the “The Most Prestigious Camera of the Year” award for Canon EOS 60D, as well. The jury for this category comprised of Hoshang Billimoria, Editor, Smart Photography, Rohinton Mehta, Technical Editor, Smart Photography, Nrupen Madhvani, Rohinton Irani, professional photographer and Adhik Shirodkar, wildlife photographer and Senior Advocate. The voting pattern for this award was completely unbiased, with each member of the distinguished jury voting only after testing the product vigorously.
At the awards fi nale, many of the guests were seen interacting with friends, peers and colleagues from the business over cocktails and dinner, with the temperature and the spirits keeping the mood upbeat.
