Children snap up ESB photo prizes

A MEATH boy, who at six years of age is already something of a veteran snapper, yesterday became the youngest ever photographer shortlisted for the ESB Environmental Photography Awards.

Meara Owen-Griffiths, from Athboy, Co Meath, made it into the top 50 selected from 3,000 people who entered the ESB's 2003 competition for his snap of a butterfly on stones in the family garden.

How does taking pictures rank with kicking a football? "It's about the same really, that's what I think," said the unfazed youngster at yesterday's prize-giving in The Helix, Dublin. He's not thinking of being a professional photographer, but he's convinced his best pictures are yet to come.

No less than two sets of parents the Kellys from Arklow, Co Wicklow, and the Hootens from Mallow, Co Cork and their keen-eyed children featured among the award-winners.

Postman Michael Kelly, who admits to an obsession for puffins, scooped the €3,000 first prize for amateurs. Daughter Amy, 15, was third in the junior category for her study of two beak-to-beak puffins.

Michael's winning shot in the amateur category was the culmination of hours of motionless waiting on the Co Kerry coastline for his puffin to come in to land.

"Landscape is my passion," admitted cabinet-maker John Hooten, second in the amateur section with his atmospheric winter evening study of Clogher Beach, Co Kerry.

Son Richard, 12, another landscape enthusiast, waited one summer's evening until all the visitors had gone out of shot to record the Giant's Causeway in Co Antrim. His "Stairway to Heaven" grabbed the adjudicators' attention and landed first prize in the junior section.

* The winning photographs will show at the Gallery of Photography in Dublin's Temple Bar from February 3-19.