See the award-winning action shots by RAF Cosford photographers
Two RAF Cosford photographers have won top awards in an annual Army competition.
Corporal Sam Jenkins and Sergeant Deklan Traylor topped the amateur and professional categories respectively at the Army Photographic Competition 2018.
Sergeant Traylor, 28, captured the expression of one soldier shouting an order to another as the pair ducked behind a wall of sandbags during a training exercise in the hills of Kenya.
Sergeant Traylor was born in Llandrindod Wells and went to Church Stretton Secondary School and Ludlow College.
He was previously posted at the Donnington based 11 Signal and West Midlands Brigade as an Army photographer but is now an instructor at the Defence School of Photography based at RAF Cosford, training the next generation of Army photographers.
Sergeant Traylor said of his photo, which was taken during infantry-based Exercise Askari Storm: “Whilst out there we had particularly bad weather with a lot of storms and torrential rain between spells of blistering hot sun.
"The photo was taken on a live firing range in the middle of the exercise.
“During live firing you are restricted on movement so that you are not in the line of fire. I took this shot to try and show the emotion and dedication of British soldiers.”
Meanwhile Corporal Sam Jenkins, also based at RAF Cosford, achieved acclaim for a series of photos he took of soldiers training for combat in built-up areas. Another image, called ‘Attack’, freezes in time the harrowing scenes of bayonet training.
Corporal Jenkins, 29, from Keighley in West Yorkshire, is a student on the course at Cosford. He was awarded first place in the Amateur Soldiering and Portfolio categories.
Corporal Jenkins’ winning image in the Amateur Soldiering category, ‘Room Clear’, shows soldiers training for fighting in built-up areas.
In the Portfolio category his images showed recruits conducting bayonet training and an Army solider gazing from the turret of a Warrior vehicle wearing his cold weather mask.
He said: “I’m very pleased to have won not just one but two prizes in this competition, especially because I was judged against my peers where the standard is so high.”
The ceremony for the competition was held at the Imperial War Museum this week.
