These two images were my entries for the first round of the internal print competition for the new season. This was also the first print competition with entries split into separate divisions.
Vixen on the prowl
Judge’s comments
When I first looked at on there [the print racks] I thought [it] was hanging out of its mouth, what it is is an ear of grass that comes up and it is just underneath there and it makes it look a bit weird.… the fox itself is gorgeous, beautifully sharp, look at those eyes, catch lights in them, and the texture. Going a little bit soft at the back end but we don’t worry about that
… we have this beautiful dark area in the background which again makes you pull out
… again one or two little things that I’d do; one there is a gull there which is behind the head and you eye tends to go up there, I’d get rid of that, quite easy to do ;
… and the other thing is I’d take the head of that grass off as it looks as though it is stuck in his chin. I can see that it is slightly in front. This blade that comes up here, I don’t mind this one as you can see what it is but the other one just looks a bit weird
… I still like it though, I’ll see that one again
Sunlit fountain
Judge’s comments
… this looks like water, it is not ice, not cotton wool; with these sprays again I think the composition I think works well,… I know you’ve got these two here [sticking up] and are symmetrical
… I like the way they’ve been cropped so that these are going that way and these this way, and all different heights
… beautiful blue background which I surmise is the sky and then you’ve got the water droplets. There’s a nice little highlight coming off [there]
… plus the lighting coming off the tubes themselves which I think is nice
The scores
There were 34 images in this print round in Division 1.
‘Vixen on the prowl’ scored 10 and ‘Sunlit fountain’ scored 8.
The original images
Lula’s image was taken on my second day in Devon photographing at the Secret British Mammal’s Workshop. The image was simply cropped to A4 dimensions ready for printing with just the Auto Settings as the only post processing.
The image was shot at ISO 200, 255 mm, f/7.1 and 1/125 sec.
Here are the other images from my second day there.
The fountain is on Karl Johans Gate in Oslo towards the palace and after watching ducks swimming in the fountain I looked up and watched the fountain’s water highlighted against the sky. Just as with Lula’s image it is cropped to A4. It has received some post processing in Lightroom using initially Auto Settings and then additional adjustment to the Exposure and Highlights.
The image was shot at ISO 100, 105 mm, f/22 and 1/25 sec.
Here are the images from the rest of our day in Oslo.