Raghuvamsh Chavali took home gold, silver and the people's choice award in a prestigious international black and white photography competition A Guelph photographer took home three awards in a global photography competition, beating out thousands of international entries. Raghuvamsh Chavali was thrilled to learn of his wins in the Exposure One Awards Thursday morning. The One Shot Photo Contest is a global black and white photography competition that celebrates distinctive single images in monochrome. “It’s really amazing,” he said. The amateur photographer won gold in the minimalism category for “Strings of Contrasts,” which he took on the way to Collingwood over the winter, struck by the pattern of the electrical lines. He took multiple pictures at different exposures on a 24mm Sony lens to get the desired effect. He took home silver in the conceptual category for his photo, “Symphony of the Starling Birds,” which was shot in Brampton. “A flock of starlings flew around the building at once. I thought they would come back, so I waited for another half hour to an hour. They came back, and the same thing happened.” Several pictures were merged together to show their flying pattern. “Strings of Contrasts” also won the people’s vote award, determined by public voting, which he said was especially touching, since it “reached so many people.” His photos were selected from thousands of international entries by a jury that included curators from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Leica Gallery in Los Angeles, Aperture in New York and the visuals director for Conde Nast, among others. “Black and white photography gives you more creative liberty to play around with the subjects,” he said. For anyone wanting to try their hands at shooting in black and white, he suggests playing around with exposures and shutter speeds. “Capture common subjects but in a different perspective. We see these electric towers daily, but a specific pattern needs to be observed in common subjects, especially black and white (to make them) look different,” he said of “Strings of Contrast.” You can view the full list of winners here.