Park Cameras Facebook Competition

Exciting news!  Just found out today that one of my pictures has won second prize in a Facebook photo competition organised by Park Cameras.  The theme was "Christmas" and so I entered an image of a robin in a suitably festive wintry tree.  I must admit that I entered this competition fairly early after it was announced and so forgot about it - there were only two other entries when I entered my shot and I hadn't realised that one of the other ones was also a robin.  I nearly deleted the email telling me I had won one of the two prizes available - a Canon A3+ sized photo printer!

The timing couldn't be more perfect as I am about to print off the final versions of the prints I want to include in my university application portfolio.  The Canon Pixma Pro-100 that Park are sending me has had great reviews and is the new model of the Canon 9000 Mk2 that I currently use.  I'll hopefully get it in the post in the next few days and I'll do a review of it and provide some comparison between that and the older version.

Here is the shot that won the competition and below it my robin picture.  I've had a look through the 200+ entries that Park Cameras received for this competition and picked out a few of my favorites.

Edinburgh Ramsey Garden - Tim Hodges

A truly deserving winner that captured this beautiful spot in amazing light.  This I could easily see being snapped up by manufacturers of Christmas Cards.

Winter Robin - Paul Fox :)

This robin lives right outside the office window where I've worked for the past three years (or at least a long line of similarly looking robins has done so).  Like lots of urban robins he's gotten very brave and doesn't seem to mind humans getting close to him.  This was a particularly cold morning and we had some unusual frost formations here in Shropshire and so I had my Canon G9 with me as it has a great macro mode.  I noticed the robin sat perfectly in the tree above me as I was shooting and chanced a couple of shots of him - this was  the best of the bunch I took.  Thank you Mr Robin for winning me a lovely prize.

The following images are taken from the competition pages.  Because of the automated entry system used by facebook very few of the entries had titles or any details of the photographer - all copyright etc remains with them!

Harsh Winter - Uncredited

Mary - Uncredited

All things Twinkle at Christmas - Jeanette62

Santa - Uncredited

I've really started to enjoy entering these competitions.  Begrudgingly I'd encourage you all to have a go - but that means I'm going to have to up my game to try to beat you.  I've found that you can never really tell what the judges are looking for (or the quality of the other images in the running) for a prize.  Don't be afraid to enter and if you don't expect to win and you can only ever be delighted if your name gets a mention or better still you actually win something.  Over 3000 people 'like' Park Cameras on facebook and they have now all seen the two winning images, more will be on Park's weekly email listing - that's great publicity for any aspiring photographer. 

Success in Stranger After Dark Competition

After my night and day street photography workshop I had a few decent portraits of complete strangers.  I decided to enter one of them 'Zombie Boy' into a photo competition that was organised by book publisher Thames and Hudson.  The challenge of the competition was to take a portrait of a complete stranger during the hours of darkness.  You weren't allowed to take 'sneak' shots and the subject had to give you permission to take the photo.  Each photographer was only allowed to enter one image.

The results were announced two days ago and I'm really please to say my picture came in second! :)  My prize is a copy of Cardiff After Dark and Street Photography Now, two excellent books that should be on any photographer's shelf.  

The top nine entries, of the 70+ that were entered, are shown in order below starting with the winner:

Oktoberfest by Michael May

Zombie Boy by Me!

Bride Having a Fag Break by Dimitra Kountiou

Portrait by Yorgos

Stranger after Dark by Danielle Houghton

Untitled by Andreas Paradise

Bananas by Adam

Pink in Red Light Amsterdam by Henning Welslau

Untitled by Lukasz Nowosadzki

National Portrait Photography Short List

The short list for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 have been announced.  I made an effort to enter the competition this year but, understandably, failed to make the final cut.  I completely misjudged the criteria for this competition but will try again next year using articles like this blog for research.

After yesterday's somewhat text heavy blogpost I've kept today's much more viewer friendly.  Enjoy the images, all taken from the short-list, and see if you can pick the winner - it will be announced on 5th November.  My personal favourite is the last image shown below:

Lynne, Brighton - © Jennifer Pattison

Mark Rylance - © Spencer Murphy

The Ventriloquist - © Alma Haser

Mo, from the series Young Hollywood - © Hana Knizova

Displaced Migrant Worker from Libya #1, from the series Trapped in Transit - © Antoine de Ras

Dhalia, 7 weeks, from the series Family Portraits - © Mark McEvoy

Kitty, Christine and Kiraa - © Lydia Panas

Margarita Teichroeb, from the series Menonos - © Jordi Ruiz Cirera

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

Taylor-Wessing Prize Entry

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

I've been watching this amazing competition grow from strength to strength each year.  This year as part of my  drive to try and get my work 'out there' I have decided to enter the competition.  Eeek!  Now, I am fully aware that the eventual winner will be an absolutely amazing capture of someone in wonderful light and with everything technically perfect but I just want to think I would make it through the first round sifting phase.

The competition is quite expensive to enter, £24 per image, and I'm hoping that this will put off people in the recession but it does mean only the best will enter.  I also opted to pay an additional £10 and this will get me a copy of the catalogue of the finalists and overall winner.

The images that I've entered...

This image is entitled Rockstar Lunch and was taken whilst on a visit to Brighton.  This couple were out for a quiet stroll on the pavilion and a lunch in peace.  Instead they had me rudely interrupting them and my friend sticking a soft box in their faces whilst they ate.  They were a great couple to shoot and really great fun to work with, they just couldn't keep a straight face and I hope this humour comes across in the portrait.

This image is called Siren and was part of a series of images I took whilst experimenting with different photographic techniques.  I am really please with this shot as it is almost straight out of camera with very little work done in Photoshop.  My subject was very patient working underwater and didn't complain too much about the water being cold.  I did initially try to shoot with her in hot water but the steam kept misting up my lenses!

Anyway, fingers crossed for the competition!  :-)