Photo of the Year: 2019


Congratulations to Steve Miller who's photo above of one of our red foxes was chosen by Sean Weekly as our photo of the year for 2019. Steve's photo will be alongside the other 11 photo of the months in our coffee shop gallery later this year, and Steve will receive a photographic day voucher to come and spend a day with us photographing many of our other residents, and of course our foxes too!

Thanks once again to Sean for being our professional judge. Here is what he said when picking out his favourite:


"It's been a while since I have visited the centre and popped into see all the staff and visitors, I now live in Wales and its not quite as easy for me to come along now and visit. One thing I will try to do this year is pay the centre a few visits. I always love seeing everyone's images from the centre pop up across my social media feeds, and everyone's images progressively get better week by week. 
After spending many a session at the centre when I first started my photography I can appreciate the skill required to achieve such great images of the animals there. Although captive it is still not an easy feat to come away with a good selection of images from a visit, so a huge well done to everyone who has got to the final stage in the top image of the year competition. 
It was a tricky one this year with a good strong 12 final images to look at. However there can only be one winner and the winning image for me is the Licking Red Fox. 
This particular image stood out for me, it has a lot of impact. Technically the image is faultless with incredible sharpness throughout. I loved the eye contact and the catch lights drawing me into this full frame portrait. It's not easy to get a full portrait like this at the centre so I know the challenges that this shot required.
The deciding factor for me was the fox licking its nose (I assume after the fox feeding). I love a bit of movement in a wildlife image as it really helps brings the picture to life and capturing the tongue has really made this a strong portrait for me.
It's also shot from a low perspective at eye level which again adds to the intensity of the portrait. 
Well done to all the finalists and as I said it was tough to choose this year, so keep shooting what you enjoy and hopefully I will see your images again online or even better in next year's competition again. 
Cheers!" - Sean Weekly


To see Sean's amazing wildlife photography, please follow this link. Lot's of great shots there, but not enough of our animals Sean!.. You need to come back soon :-)





from British Wildlife Centre ~ Keeper's Blog http://britishwildlifecentre.blogspot.com/2020/01/photo-of-year-2018.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2019 off to a reasonable start

Image
Overcast, 5°, light NNW. A Little Egret seen today on the way out to Lollingdon and appeared to drop down near Amwell Spring. The hill hosted around 100 Fieldfare and a flock of c50 Meadow Pipit for a time before moving off over the top. Several Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer around the hill and a single Corn Bunting . A small flock of c20 Pied Wagtail feeding out with the Sheep. A few more Fieldfare and Redwing scattered around the Lollingdon area, a Goldcrest , Grey Heron , Kestrel , a couple of Jay , 2 Bullfinch and several Starling amongst other species. A Brambling in a private garden. Per Alan Dawson. 2 Blackcap in TW’s garden and 2 Chiffchaff at CSW. The flock of c60 Golden Plover still around Cholsey Hill. Brambling (courtesy Alan Dawson) from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2019/01/2019-off-to-reasonable-start.html
Read more

A Butterfly day

Image
Another sunny day, 24°, light E. A walk alongside the Bunk line from Church road to the bypass. Butterflies were the order of the day with literally hundreds of Meadow Brown on the wing today. They were everywhere. Another 8 Painted Lady seen with some looking very tatty after a presumably long flight and ageing. Best one of the day was a single Silver-washed Fritillary seen flying around a large garden before disappearing from view. Good numbers of Marbled White all along the route. Other species noted were: Small Skipper , Large Skipper , Large White , Small White , Green-veined White , Brimstone (1), Brown Argus (3), Common Blue (8), Red Admiral (6), Small Tortoiseshell (c20), Comma (3), Speckled Wood (2), Ringlet (12) and Small Heath (2). Some thistles were in flower on the edge of a bean field and these held the majority of Painted Lady , Small Tort and Marbled White . Dragonflies: Banded Demoiselle (M&F), Large Red Damselfly and Southern Hawke
Read more

A Great Start to 2020 at Yew View – Tawny Owls & Interesting Feeding Station Meetings!

Image
We had a great year at Yew View last year, with lots of great wildlife and some amazing insights into the lives of our local wildlife, especially our lovely Tawny Owl pair who raised  their beautiful owlets to fledge into the garden. We built an otter holt, with cameras and encouraged as much wildlife as we could into this 7 acre site. We have lots of exciting ideas and projects for 2020, of course. Hopefully, after months of high river levels, we will get our otter holt up and running with its two cameras. It has spent more time under water than above water so far and the cameras are sitting up in the office, waiting for the river to be stable enough for me to feel confident about reinstalling them! We are also going to upgrade some of the cameras we have, as well as creating some new feeding stations. We have a new piece of land that is also going to be developed for wildlife this year….. a large pool and boggy area for dragonflies and damselflies, wild flower meadow, tree planting
Read more