Visit to the World Wildlife Photographer of the Year touring exhibition.
Location: National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
Date of visit: 29th April 2014.
Location: National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
Date of visit: 29th April 2014.
This is an annual photogaphic competition and exhibition. The exhibition starts at the Natural History Museum in London and then tours to other selected locations in the UK. This year there were over 43,000 entries from which some 100 images are selected and judged by a panel of emminent judges chaired by one of the world's most respected photographers, Jim Brandenburg. I visited the exhibition with a fellow OCA photography student and interviewed the exhibition curator Cindy Howells.
As expected, the exhibition made an immediate impact on me. There was so much to see and examine and the photographs on display were an excellent example of all the good things about excellent photography - impact, good composition, colour, lighting, exposure, sharpness. Each picture, including the ones in the junior section, were superb. Cindy was very good at explaining the organisation of the exhibition in various categories to me and said that there has been a great response to the exhibits from a large number of visitors.
Overwhelmed by the size, variety and quality of the exhibition I decided to look at the two overall winners in more detail with Cindy. Winning the junior section from India was a 14 year old boy called Udayan with a photograph of a type of crocodile , a Garial with young. The young were resting on her neck and back in the water. There were various shades of brown and it looked peaceful, although these creatures probably bite and eat you! It was technically superb. For coming first Udayan gets a prize of £1000. The overall winner getting and award of £10,000 was Greg du Toit from South Africa with his winning photograph "Essence of Elephants" This was a group of elephants shot at night at a waterhole. The whole picture was very blue in colour. It was shot between the legs of one of the elephants and his moving trunk was blur. But the whole picture from the elephants rear legs nearest the camera to elephants in the distance was sharp. Although I like elephants, this was not my kind of picture and I found the overall blue tone in the darkness of the night difficult. I was surprised it had been the winner as there were amazing pictures of some very rare animals with only a few of the their species in the world left where photographers had camped out in hides to get the right shot for many days. But that's judging for you.
This was the first time I had attended an exhibition as part of a course and it was an interesting experience. Cindy was especially helpful and I am looking forward to the next exhibition I visit. I learnt a number of things. There is a need to think more about colour, the animals were shown in their habitat context and we have to think about that with many other subjects, shutter speed to freeze or blur motion is important, as is having the right lens/lenses.
Finally, to be a winner in this competition you must be able to travel - there was only one photograph in the exhibition taken in the UK. That was of a Kingfisher taken in South Gloucester.
As expected, the exhibition made an immediate impact on me. There was so much to see and examine and the photographs on display were an excellent example of all the good things about excellent photography - impact, good composition, colour, lighting, exposure, sharpness. Each picture, including the ones in the junior section, were superb. Cindy was very good at explaining the organisation of the exhibition in various categories to me and said that there has been a great response to the exhibits from a large number of visitors.
Overwhelmed by the size, variety and quality of the exhibition I decided to look at the two overall winners in more detail with Cindy. Winning the junior section from India was a 14 year old boy called Udayan with a photograph of a type of crocodile , a Garial with young. The young were resting on her neck and back in the water. There were various shades of brown and it looked peaceful, although these creatures probably bite and eat you! It was technically superb. For coming first Udayan gets a prize of £1000. The overall winner getting and award of £10,000 was Greg du Toit from South Africa with his winning photograph "Essence of Elephants" This was a group of elephants shot at night at a waterhole. The whole picture was very blue in colour. It was shot between the legs of one of the elephants and his moving trunk was blur. But the whole picture from the elephants rear legs nearest the camera to elephants in the distance was sharp. Although I like elephants, this was not my kind of picture and I found the overall blue tone in the darkness of the night difficult. I was surprised it had been the winner as there were amazing pictures of some very rare animals with only a few of the their species in the world left where photographers had camped out in hides to get the right shot for many days. But that's judging for you.
This was the first time I had attended an exhibition as part of a course and it was an interesting experience. Cindy was especially helpful and I am looking forward to the next exhibition I visit. I learnt a number of things. There is a need to think more about colour, the animals were shown in their habitat context and we have to think about that with many other subjects, shutter speed to freeze or blur motion is important, as is having the right lens/lenses.
Finally, to be a winner in this competition you must be able to travel - there was only one photograph in the exhibition taken in the UK. That was of a Kingfisher taken in South Gloucester.