The Giles Barker Award is presented to any person connected with any aspect of cave photography in recognition of excellence or contributions to the field; it has a wide remit to allow consideration of many areas of image creation. The award has been running since 1993 in memory of Giles, a keen cave photographer who died while caving in Spain in 1992. Giles was a member of the Red Rose CPC and Morgannwg CC, which together fund the special trophy which beautifully crafted annually by Ceris Jones.
For 2024 the winner is Richard ‘Roo’ Walters for his outstanding work in 3D laser scanning, with which he has generated superb visual representations of caves from around the world as well as in the UK. The results of his fastidious and time-consuming computer processing have included virtual fly-throughs and even models constructed from the data, along with stunningly realistic 2D ‘photographs’ – these lack colour, but this can be added artificially by the program or by using accurate tones from traditional photos. They are so detailed that it can be impossible to tell the difference between the image and a real photograph of the same scene. Having amassed a huge body of quality work, Roo is truly at the top of his field and thoroughly deserves this recognition.
Congratulations go to Roo for this 29th award in the series. Previous award winners and further information can be found here.
Correspondent: Chris Howes
