US Military Photographer of the Year 2012

The winners of the 2012 US Military Photographer of the year award has been announced.  With all of the freelance photographers currently risking their lives in war zones across the world I am always interested to see how military personnel are allowed to publically portray themselves in competitions like this.  Having served in the military myself I am acutely aware of how easy it is for these events to be hijacked as a public relations or political exercise.

Category: Combat camera operational, honorable mention

Army soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment deployed to Combat Outpost Sabari in Afghanistan scan the area as they begin a multi-day air assault mission May 2 in the eastern Khost province, near the Pakistani border.

Staff Sgt. Joshua L. DeMotts / U.S. Air Force

Category: Portrait-personality, second place

An Afghan National Army soldier poses with a poppy near the village of Karizonah, in Khost province. In Afghanistan, the poppy crop is a major source of funding for extremist groups involved in the Taliban-led insurgency.

Staff Sgt. Joshua L. DeMotts / U.S. Marine Corps

Category: Combat camera operational, first place

Afghan National Army special operations and coalition forces search a compound March 23, 2012, in Southern Afghanistan during a raid targeting a Taliban sub-commander.

Staff Sgt. Sean K. Harp / U.S. Army

Category: Hardware, first place

U.S. Air Force equipment from the 820th RED HORSE Squadron, descends for support during Mobility Air Force Exercise over the Nevada Test and Training Range. 

Airman 1st Class. Daniel Hughes / U.S. Air Force

Category: Features, first place

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Lock and his wife, Chris, comfort his mother, Mary, as she takes her last breaths before passing away Oct. 22 at a nursing facility in Gloversville, N.Y. She was 87.

Master Sgt. Jeremy Lock / U.S. Air Force

The image above is my favourite from the whole competition, I guess it appeals to the documentary photographer in me.  I investigated further into this shot.  The photographer is Jeremy Lock, grandson of the subject.  He is currently a U.S. Air Force combat photojournalist stationed at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C. with the 1st Combat Camera Squadron.  Over the years he has had seven winning entries in the Military Photographer of the Year competition.  Whilst serving as a photographer in Iraq in 2006 he was taking pictures of a group of marines that came under fire.  Several marines were hit and Lock put down his cameras, picked up an assault rifle, and helped provide covering fire as the injured were dragged to safety.  For his actions he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Lock, shown above, has worked around the world with the military.  His work has been published in Time and National Geographic magazines as well as major newspapers across the United States including The New York Times, The LA Times and The Washington Times. His work has also been published in books including "The War in Iraq" and "A Day in the Life of the United States Armed Forces."  

An interview with Lock from 2006 can be found HERE.  I found the following points from the interview interesting to read - especially as I've just recently watched the brilliant documentary McCullin:

What special precautions and/or equipment do you take when you're going to a combat area?
Well, lucky for me, I have a lot of military training that is required before we step foot in the war zone. And on this trip it has definitely worked. The training just kicks in which in turn helps you complete the mission. When I go out for a shoot here, I wear a Kevlar helmet, body armor, shooters vest with one lens (17-55mm) extra batteries and film cards, note pad and pen and some essential first aid supplies. I have a 9mm pistol strapped to my leg and carry 2 cameras (D1X with a 80-400mm lens and a D2X with a 12-24mm lens) At times I do interchange the lenses with different bodies depending on the effect or situation. With my photography I do not use flash unless I am in a studio. And for night missions I carry a night vision lens adapter, but don’t use it. I use all natural light. And I always pray for my safe return! 

What ethical considerations do you keep in mind while shooting in combat zones (civilians and military)?To capture the truth! When editing my photos I do not do anything that can not be done in a darkroom - unless I'm creating an illustration.
 What are some of the ethics issues in conflict areas?Knowing when to shoot and knowing when to put the camera down and help out with civilians or military.  I have not really had any problems in this area yet. I did have to put my camera down and help give first aid to a civilian who was shot because there was only one guy helping and he needed help.  In my experiences the people I am photographing know I am there, so act accordingly. If something did go amiss I would like to think I would stop it or shoot what’s going on and let the higher ups deal with it. Until you are put into that situation, you don't know.
 How did these instances affect you, and did your emotions impact the way you approached a photo?
I have not encountered any ethical issues over here. I did, however, have one when I was working on a story in a neo natal intensive care unit very early in my career.  I was shooting a family that gave me permission to shoot them and their baby died. Although I had permission I couldn’t bring the camera to my face. Later I talked about the situation with my fellow photographers and we all agreed, as long as I wasn’t obtrusive to the family, shooting from a distance, the family probably would of loved to have the last few moments with their baby captured on film to remember. Again you just never know until you are put in to these situations. I believe if you are a good person you will do the right thing.

A very short clip with Lock in action is HERE

Lock learnt his skills at the Defense Information School.  Some details of the courses run there can be found by looking through some of the links from the page ie for the Intermediate Photojournalism Course - the references page is useful, it seems that actually taking pictures is a very small part of the course.

Lock is currently the chief photographer for the Airman Magazine, the official magazine of the USAF, and some of his images for that publication can be found HERE.

More images from this year's competition can be found at:

The Telegraph

CBS News

The Daily Mail

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012

The winning entries for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year2012 have just been announced and so I thought I'd share some of the winning entries with you.  All of the pictures shown here are copyright their respective photographers.  Information has been taken from the Royal Museums Greenwich site.  I'd recommend following the links to each of the photographers Flickr accounts for larger versions of the images.  I've included links to some of the telescopes and cameras used by these photographers - it's a field of photography I knew very little about until writing this post!

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy

This is the winning picture for the 'Deep Space' category and was taken by Martin Pugh.  He used an expensive Apogee camera mounted to an even more expensive Planewave telescope to capture this image of the M51 Whirlpool Galaxy.  The actual image is far sharper than shown here and the detail in the spiral arms is incredible.  Those dots that look like stars are actually other galaxies!  You can find more of Marin's images on his Flickr account HERE

Simeis 147 Supernova Remains

If you ever wondered where all the particles in your body came from the answer is from events such as this.  This image shows the remains of a star that exploded around 40,000 years ago.  The particles are still moving outwards and they now straddle several galaxies.  The photographer Bernal Andreo used a $10,000 combination of a  Takahashi telescope mounted to his SBIG camera to get this image - worth every penny I think.  You can find more of his work on Flickr HERE

The next category is one that everyday photographers like myself might have a chance of entering.  The Earth and Space category is for photos that include landscape, people or other 'Earthly' things along with an astronomical subject.

Ice Starfall

This is my favourite image from this year's competition as it is so full of mood and atmosphere.  Photographer Masahiro Miyasaka took this image in Japan using a Canon 5D Mk2 with a 14mm lens - so no fancy telescopes or complicated equipment.  The frozen ice streaks work perfectly to draw your eye up towards the heavens and the trees help to give a sense of scale.  His Flickr page is HERE.

In the next category I'm sure the runner up must be gutted because I thought his image was way better than the actual winner.  The Our Solar System category is for photos of our Sun and its family of planets, moons, asteroids and comets. 

Transit of Venus

This image by UK photographer Chris Warren was chosen as the winner by the judges because "for me this picture perfectly captures the excitement of the 2012 transit of Venus. After getting up at 4am on a cloudy morning it really didn't look as though the British weather was going to co-operate. But then, with just minutes to go, a gap appeared in the clouds and we got a precious glimpse of Venus in front of the Sun."  Chris has more pictures on his Flickr account HERE

The shot was taken using a Grasshopper camera mounted to a telescope.  I'd never even heard of this sort of camera but a quick search on the internet revealed some clips of it in action.  The clip below is, I'm assuming, a shot of the Sun in 'action'.  Sorry about the music!

Now for one of the highly commended shots in the same category - also taken of the transit of Jupiter past the Sun.

Venus Transit

This shot made me mouth a silent 'Wow'.  It's by Australian photographer Paul Haese and was constructed by using a mosaic shooting technique.  This uses the camera to capture a small area in great detail.  The photo is then pieced together with other shots, like a jigsaw, to create one large image.  This was made from 6 panels of images with each panel containing 750 photos!  Paul is clearly a keen astronomy photographer and his Flickr page shows entries for some of the other categories HERE.


The next category is the one that makes me green with envy as it is the Young Astronomy Photographer category.  It's sickening how much talent these young men, and all the prize winners were men, have already got.

Pleiades Cluster

I couldn't find a link to the photographers website so you'll have to settle for this screen grab.  Jacob von Chorus, a fifteen year old from Canada, took this using a Skywatcher Telescope with a Canon 100D Camera mounted on the end.  He used a total of an hour of exposure time to build up the picture.  It shows one of the closest star clusters to Earth, the Pleiades Cluster, better known as the Seven Sisters.

The final image here, from the same category, will hopefully provide a kick up the butt for any would be astro-photographers who think you need fancy kit to get impressive results.

Lunar Mountains

If you've ever tried to take a picture of the moon you will know it can be really difficult to get anything decent with even a 300mm lens.  You need a professional telescope and high end camera to get anything interesting.  Jacob Marchio, 13, took this with a budget level Orion Astroview telescope similar to this one, and a Canon Powershot SD1300!  

I was given a telescope not too dissimilar to the Astroview for Christmas a few years back.  I think it's time I got it out of the cupboard, dusted it off, and got a mount to fit my Canon 5D to it :)


Congratulations to all of the winners.  If this article has whetted your appetite for astronomy photography and  you would like to see more images then go to the competition result page at Royal Museums Greenwich

The BBC news pages have picked up on the story and there is a short video about the entries HERE

Favourite Olympic Pictures

My Favourite Olympic Pictures

The most amazing sports show on earth has temporarily come to a close, ready to start all over again with the Paralympics in only a few weeks time.  In the brief respite I thought I would share my favourite images from the London 2012 Olympics.  I have tried to steer away from the obvious shots and have chosen ones that may have slipped past your radar.

I'n not normally a fan of the tilt-shift effect as it is poorly used and normally just a blur applied to a normal shot.  When done properly though the 'toy town' look can be remarkable as in the show jumping image by Alex Livesey above.

The long look - the compressing effect of a telephoto lens is put to great effect here by crunching 110 metres into a few inches.  The runner is in a good position but it is a pity that the head isn't cleanly framed.

I love the detail in this shot and the large exposure range.  I tried something similar at a moto-cross rally and ended up with either blurry but well lit riders or dark, sharp riders.  Shooting towards the sky is tricky and I can only assume the photographer used off camera flash to get this image.

There will be more on fish eye lenses later but I felt that this shot was an ideal place to use one.  I would love to see the contact sheet for this series, I bet that dozens were taken but only one ended up perfectly framed with a splash on the lens.  The curve caused by the extremely wide angle lens adds to the sense of nausea.  At first I hated the bubble in the top left of the frame but it serves as a visual counterbalance for the boat in the bottom right.

 I think that it is the extreme angle of the basketball player that makes this image leap out at me from the pack.  The use of negative space really serves to isolate the player and the brightness of his uniform and diagonal lines bring life to the image.

Colour contrast and positioning make this image work for me.  The leading lines of the court, racquet and even the player's body draws the eye into the frame.  You can't see the player's face but the stance and clenched fists clearly show that this was a victory.  Shots like this take prior preparation, I can't imagine you are allowed to hover above the playing field whilst a match is in progress.

A very strange image and one that I haven't seen replicated elsewhere whilst I researched this article.  This is midway through a hurdles races.  There are plenty of images where the runners are pin sharp and the background blurred.  This image struck me as odd because the background lines were so straight.  When you look at the strange pink shapes in the bottom left of the shot you can see distorted hurdles.  I'm guessing this was taken with a fish eye lens and then the shot was straightened in Photoshop afterwards.  Strange but effective. (Image copyright Sports Illustrated/Getty).

For me this shot perfectly captures what it means to be a successful athlete at the Games.  Mo Farah won two gold medals and was the centre of attention amongst the British contingent during the closing ceremony.  It looks like Mo is getting his picture taken close up by a camera phone with a bright fill light.  The pro photographer further away from the scene has been able to use this light to frame Mo and put him squarely in the centre of attention.  The only bit I find distracting is the young man to the left of frame by Mo, perhaps a decrease in exposure would have enhanced the effect.  (Image copyright Sports Illustrated/Getty)

I promised more fish eye action and here it is.  I was watching the steeple chase as it unfolded on TV.  The majority of the photographers positioned their cameras by the large water jump in the hope of getting a shot of someone falling over.  I don't think anyone fell but this image was definitely worth the wait.  The image is full of drama and life and I can almost hear the water splashing as I look at it.

The speed of cycling is captured perfectly in this image.  Everything is 'wrong' about this picture - the horizon is crooked, the image blurry and the cyclist is in the wrong side of the frame (he has no where to 'cycle' to).  But none of that matters for me as the loneliness and speed of the pursuit races is caught here.

And finally my favourite image from the games (and I bet it's not what you expected) ....

I think it is the growing love I have for candid documentary photography that draws me to this picture.  Technically I think this is a brilliant capture; the depth of field is spot on, colours vivid and exposure perfect.  It is the lighting on the heart being made by the boxer that really pulls this shot from good to great.  The stereotype of burly boxer and the associated macho image is blown away by the simple heart shape he makes to the crowd. His face is lit just enough to show his joy and I find this shot really moving.