the winner of the 2011 BrewDog Photo Competition is...

Invest in BrewDog at www.brewdog.com/equityforpunks

Congratulations to MT Richard for the epic winning photo and thanks to all who entered. Here are your top 3, we also got the winners to give us some comments on their photos and how they took them!

First Prize MT Richard - Bear Smash

My inspiration for this photo came from the Hardcore IPA video, where Martin and James are smashing shitty beer bottles. I thought that the splash as the bottle breaks would look awesome if it could be captured at a really high speed. Of course I also just wanted to smash some shit lagers myself! Initially I tried using a hammer to break the bottles, but that didn't work as the splash was never in the frame. After some of thought I decided to just try dropping the bottle onto a hard surface as the splash would stay in the frame. The camera I used was a Canon EOS 30D, set to 1/8000, F/5.6 and an ISO of 400.

We dropped about 75 bottles (thanks to my mom for doing all the dropping!) filled with water to practice and got some great shots. I then went and bought some Heineken to smash for the final shot - I chose Heineken as it was my shitty beer of choice in the brief period I did not drink craft beer. The full bottles were much harder to capture as the pressure made them explode quite violently. This was the only picture from all 6 full bottles I dropped that captured the shattering and splash. I chose the teddy to be a tribute to the late Mr. Stoat (I know it’s a mouse, but it kind of looks like a stoat).

2nd Prize Helene Faulk - Swimming Punk Dog

The photo features my Giant Schnauzer Punk Dog, Grejja.  It was a taken a sunny summer day at our vacation home on the country side of Sweden. The dog (who is also hooked on BrewDog products, especially Punk IPA) had to work hard for me to get the right shot. All in all Grejja had to fetch the bottle 200 times (over a week) and she really did enjoy it, which is kind of disturbing and fun at the same time. I hope you enjoy this picture as much as I and the dog did shooting it.  It was a lot of hard work but in the end it turned out great! Give us back the Paradox, we miss it in Sweden (ALOT)!

Third Prize J Bax - Tokyo* Space Ship

My name is Justin Baxter from Leicestershire, England and I'm responsible for the Intergalactic Fantastic Tokyo* photo. I have been a (proper) beer fan for only about 2 years, starting with the Belgium and German greats before discovering BrewDog at the beginning of this year. I was inspired to enter the photo competition by BrewDog’s sense of humour and passion for great beer. I hoped the irony behind the intergalactic fantastic scene made inside of a cardboard box, complete with cardboard flame and visible string holding the Tokyo* rocket and play mobile man above the moon with egg box craters, would appeal to that same BrewDog sense of humour!

I am an investor in BrewDogs 'equity for punks' and I am a fan of all beers BrewDog (especially 5am Saint, Punk IPA and Tokyo*)... 'UP THE CRAFT BEER REVOLUTION!!'

Please email James to claim your prizes.

Invest in BrewDog at www.brewdog.com/equityforpunks