Metalcraft Photo Competition

Every year we encourage our customers to send in photos of their weathervanes and swinging signs by running a photo competition, with the winner earning a £50 voucher for our online shop. It's always a tough choice as we get sent so many great ones! This year we are also picking the 2021 winner as well, because this time last year we were facing eviction from our workshop and dealing with all the chaos of moving our home and business to the Scottish Borders, so the competition was completely forgotten about.

This years winner is this Swallows weathervane... but there are 3 others that were close contenders that it's definitely worth publishing here. We love a nice orange sunset, which is what initially attracted me to this photo, but the fact that the Swallows profile is at the right angle to display all the detail and markings of these distinctive birds, accentuated by the light shining through, is what made it my favourite for 2022. The voucher will be sent out via email.

I also loved the deep blue sky background defining the detail of our Landrover weathervane (yes, it's Australian - we don't see many skies like this here!) and the angle of the Boat weathervane gives a great view of both the sail and cardinal points. Good to see they have raised this one above the height of the trees too, giving it undisturbed airflow to allow it to function correctly. And I'm always delighted to recieve photos of our Fox and Badger weathervane as it's one of my favourite designs.

The winner for 2021 is the Farm sign below; we love the beauty of the location and the rising sun in the background, plus the clarity of the photograph shows off the laser cut design I drew, and you can tell the text was painted by hand.

There were a number of high quality images sent in this year though, and I should certainly mention that we love the Morris dancers weathervane for the way the light hits the edge of the laser cut design plus the frost on the shed in the foreground and the raindrops on the steel gives it so much character. I also love how the George and Dragon weathervane is framed by the trees in the background making a great image, and the clarity, angle and blue sky of the Boat weathervane.