This was the second round of the Digital Image League at Bracknell Camera Club in the 2021-22 season and again we could submit two images. I decided to continue with my second image being from my iPhone and again it was from our recent visit to Cornwall.
Arctic tern attack!
On my Seabirds and Castles tour in June we visited the Isle of May which is off North Berwick in Scotland. To get to and from the dock we had to run the gauntlet of the nesting Arctic Terns. I tried to emulate Robert Harvey’s prize winning image of an arctic tern coming in to attack.
Judge’s comments
… again another bird in flight, again another stunning bird in flight
… the eyes sharp, the beak sharp, the beautiful shape of those wings
… they can be quite vicious
… you have got another tern in the bottom right hand corner that for me works particularly well , I think it could have bee completely blanked out , you might even have put that one in , the fact that we have another tern in that corner does add another dimension to it
… quite a grey background but there is nothing that you could do about the light on that day
… we have got a great sense of movement and the fact that the one on the right hand side is completely blurred that doesn’t matter as it adds something to it
… that shape of the wings for me makes this image
Porth Leddon
After our walk to Cape Cornwall we decided to cross the next bay, Porth Leddon, on our way back to Botallack. From the hilltop it looked a lot easier walk then it turned out. This image was shot about halfway across with my iPhone on one of the parts not covered in very large granite boulders!
Judge’s comments
…the letterbox crop as soon as I saw this works very very effectively, what I really enjoyed was that rock on the left ,the textures, the shape, and the way it has an egg shape etched into this , then I looked and it has an ET like face , which was also interesting
… I think in the actual way this has been put in the frame that works very nicely , the horizon which is horizontal and is a beautiful example of one where you have hot to get the horizon horizontal, that works
… and we have also have a leading line in the middle to draw us in
… when I first saw it I wondered does it look a little bit over saturated but then we do get skies that are that blue occasionally, I don’t know whether you have touched the saturation slider . The advice I have always been given is touch Vibrance but never do anything to the Saturation slider. It has a slight sense of over saturation , if it was like this then this is the problem we have as photographers that sometimes we have to hold back some of the strong colours to avoid the accusation of that we have over saturated it, it is unfair, but life’s unfair! It just looks a touch over saturated
… compositionally absolutely works and the way in which those textures on that rock and that fascinating foreground, that works very very effectively
The scores
There were 33 images in this Digital Image round in Division 1.
‘Arctic tern attack!’ scored 8.5 and ‘Porth Ledden’ scored 8.
The original images
‘Arctic tern attack!’:
ISO 100 105mm f/7.1 1/1600 sec
Seabirds and Castles to North Berwick visit TBA
‘Porth Leddon’:
ISO 25, f/2, 1/372 sec and 6mm focal length