An aviation maintenance technician’s self-portrait of his solitary work one evening on the swashplate friction of a large-cabin helicopter was recently awarded top honors in the first-ever photo contest in Rotor magazine, the official publication of Helicopter Association International (HAI).

Pablo Linares of Fort Worth, Texas, used a small digital camera mounted on a tripod to capture his work under the lights. In accepting the grand prize of $500, Linares stated the photo demonstrated that, “Behind a great aviation department, there is always a great maintenance crew.”

Other category winners were:

• Michael Meadows’ photo of an L.A. County Fire Department helo won in the category “Helicopters at Work”

• Michael Braithwaite demonstrated how “Helicopters Serve the Community” with his photo of firefighters training onboard an emergency medical services (EMS) helicopter

•John Ford’s photo of a Black Hawk accelerating at low level captured “Helicopters in the Military”

• Desiree Horton’s self-portrait with her aircraft demonstrated “People and their Helicopters”

• Kevin Franks used an iPhone 4S to take a sunset photo of three helos reflected in a pool of water in the “Cellphone Photos” category

Each category winner took home a $50 prize. HAI has posted the winning photos, as well as several runners-up, on www.rotor.com. The winning photographs are also featured throughout the Las Vegas Convention Center during Heli-Expo ’13.

The magazine reported that its inaugural photo contest received hundreds of entries, enough to warrant a second shootout. Entries to that competition will be accepted on or after August 1, with winners announced in the Winter 2014 issue of Rotor.