The Assignment from Canon.

You may well have undertaken various photo assignments in the past, but now here’s one from Canon.

The Assignment is an exciting new pan-European photography competition that challenges amateur photographers to submit their best work in one of four categories: Portrait, Landscape, Sport and Macro.

The competition is held cross 19 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and UK. In every country, winning images will be selected by a distinguished judging panel from a shortlist created by online public voting; the winners will be rewarded with €2,000 worth of Canon EOS kit.

Each national category winner will also be judged against those from all other competing countries by the expert panel, chaired by award-winning reportage, portrait and travel photographer Vicki Couchman. The top two winners in Europe per category (Portrait, Landscape, Sport and Macro) will then be taken on a trip to Vienna to experience the thrills of a match at UEFA EURO 2008 before competing head-to-head in a photographic shoot out.

The final four European category winners will win the opportunity to plan, then follow their own personal ‘dream assignment’ – each of which will be filmed for broadcast across Europe later in the year.

"The Assignment will help amateur photographers across Europe to realise their ambitions," said Mogens Jensen, Head of Canon Consumer Imaging, Europe. "Canon EOS has revolutionised D-SLR photography, and with this high-profile competition we hope to inspire even more people to take up this rewarding, creative hobby.”

The competition opens on 17 March 2008 and runs until 1 May 2008. Public voting ends two weeks later. Each registrant will gain free access to exclusive online video tutorials with head judge Vicki Couchman

For more information, visit http://ta.canon-europe.com/index.php?cc=gb&lc=en