This was the fourth round of the printed image competition. This year at the camera club is a transition year and there are no separate divisions.
Circling Petrel
Judge’s comments
… I love the quality in this shot, even though the bird looks a little bit flat in turns of colour there’s actually lots and lots of detail in the feathers lots of textures and tones of browns and creams in the feathers
… love that feeling and there’s lots of detail around the beak and the eye, we can actually see rif=ght into the eye
.. really good technique by the photographer to catch this level of detail,
… I like the fact that it is a fairly dynamic line with the bird tilting, banking round,
… I am fascinated by the lines in the beak , they are really really interesting,, draw me into that head end, the tones of cream
… so really good technique, being pedantic it would be really nice if there was some similar detail under the wings and the lower part of [the] body maybe our light wasn’t in quite the right direction here
… lovely detail, love the fact that we can actually see the eye , we can see the bird as it is looking to see where it is going
Gentoo Penguin
Judge’s comments
…What I liked about this is that you can actually see a bit of fur in the penguin’s beak, so we can actually image what it has been doing
… there’s a feeling of action and you’ve really caught it moving from someplace, it looks a little precarious on top of these rocks
… it is a warmer study of a penguin
… to be honest I think I’d like to have seen it in a bigger context, it looks a little isolated, just here on its own,
… it is a well taken shot of the penguin but I feel a little isolated and I think I’d like to see it more in one of its bigger colonies or at least perhaps a sign of the colony in the background
The scores
There were 55 printed images in this round.
‘Circling Petrel’ scored 8.5 and ‘Gentoo Penguin’ scored 8.
The original images
Both of these images were from our visit to Antarctica in 2017.
The Giant Petrel was circling over MS Fram as we waited for the remaining passengers to come back from New Island.
For the print competition I cropped the image and did some lightening of the bird but clearly not enough. I have been advised that the bird is ‘too boring’ to consider for my LRPS panel.
The penguin was at Neko Harbour. This was our first landing of the expedition and best of all it was on mainland Antarctica. We were on a small hill that overlooked the bay and in front of us was a glacier that was calving. The adult penguin was being chased by a chick that didn’t quite make it up the rocks at first.
I have been advised that the image is probably good enough for a panel but I should ‘loose’ the blue veins in the glacier to the left of the penguin as they are distracting.
I maybe should have chosen one with the chick . . . ?
