Real, yet not real: The photograph of a toppling television tower, used as advance publicity for the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS® World Championships in Stuttgart in October, has now been chosen as winner of the PR Picture Award in the Event category. The award was made by dpa subsidiary, news aktuell. The dramatic winning picture shows German lumber sport competitor and World Championship contender, Robert Ebner, apparently felling Stuttgart's television tower with an axe.
That prominent Stuttgart landmark is still standing, of course. German timbersports competitor, Robert Ebner, really is wielding an axe in the photograph that has just won the news aktuell PR Picture Award 2013 (in the Event category), but it is only a block of wood he is chopping. That block of wood has been set up at the foot of the real television tower, and its color and shape are similar to the real thing. Positioned in line with the real structure and at the correct distance, the transition is barely discernible in the photograph and the 216 m tall monument appears to be toppling under the axe blows. The whole effect was achieved without photographic post-production.
The judges were impressed by this trick photography in the STIHL TIMBERSPORTS® motif that heralded the Timbersports World Championships in Stuttgart in October. Shot at an angle from ground level by photographer Sebastian Marko, the picture has an original and dynamic effect, showing a familiar object from an unusual viewpoint. The way it plays with perspective and draws the eye pulls the viewer right into the action.