February is here and I feel like I will be doing a lot of moaning in this blog so get ready…

The evenings are slowly getting lighter but the weather has managed to get worse, with storm after storm battering the UK, leaving photography opportunities few and far between.

The first wet shoot came at the beginning of the month after hearing there was a new ‘valentines’ themed Banksy in Bristol. I headed over not 48 hours after its creation only to find it had already been ruined by some cock womble. This was so frustrating as it was the first opportunity I’d had to photograph a fully intact piece and only added to the gloom of the day.

I tried my best to edit out the added vandalism graffiti but sadly my skills on photoshop are a little limited to say the least so the finished results are not perfect by a long shot but I tried my best.

of course when I arrived there were already a steady queue of people taking selfies with it or vlogging to their 8 or so listeners, so I took my opportunity as the rain fell to take a few quick images of the scene while it was clear, before beating a hasty retreat back out of the rain.

Since I took these images, the whole piece has been covered over so I was lucky to even see what I did.

After more storms, and more bad weather throughout the rest of the month, Greta Thunberg was in town giving me the chance to get some much needed street photography shots. I had hoped for some good weather as the day before had been lovely and clear, but of course the heavens opened for her arrival, making photographing anything very difficult with a dull, overcast drizzly morning making photography just that little bit harder.

Banner through the crowds - 70-200mm F/4

I have mentioned before that I find street photography tricky as its very easy to take very generic images that come across as mere snapshots when finished. This time I was a little more methodical with my selections, sometimes standing back away from the crowd looking for something a little different, out of the ‘ordinary’ or a scene that told the story of the action unfolding.

Waiting crowds in the rain - 70-200mm F/4

After a fruitless time standing in the rain without any real chance of seeing the Thunberg at all, I decided to cut my losses and change tact, heading out of the main crowd to see if I could pick out something interesting on the periphery of the event.

Once away from the backs of people’s heads, I came across a guy with ‘climate change is a myth’ scrawled on a bit of paper staring through the crowd at me with joker clown face paint on. I was able to take two images before this fleeting moment of what can only be described as brooding anger from this young guy passed. I knew as I took the two shots that this had made the whole standing in the rain worth it however even if i think it’s not the perfect image, as I would have loved to have captured the whole sign. What I do love is the feeling the image creates, as his intensity burns into your very soul while he looks directly through the crowd.

Horse Police posing for me - 70-200mm F/4

I retreated back to my office in the Colston tower after hearing Greta Thunberg speak, taking up a vantage point on the 6th floor that gave me fantastic views of the 15 thousand or so people as they marched by in the rain .

Hidden in plain sight among the crowd was the star of the show, the diminutive Greta Thunberg herself. I love the image below as it is a kind of a where’s wally-esque image. Can you find her??

The 400mm F/5.6 came into its own here, as I was able to get in close on the march, picking out Greta as she and her fellow young activists passed by.

The morning after the march I was passing college green which was now one big empty muddy field.

College green the morning after - 24-70mm F/2.8

And finally for this wet blog edition, It’s wildlife photographer of the year again. Time for me to critique/rant about some of their images and decision making for the ‘cream’ of the 2019 crop that made it into the gallery and book.

First of all I could see a clear overall shift in judging, with entrants this year which, for the most part was for the better. There were far less camera trap finalists which i’m not a fan of, and for the most part some good decision making when it came to picking finalists in the younger categories. As I have discussed before in my blog, this particular area needed improvement, with young photographers winning with entries clearly taken by their professional photographer parents using high end equipment that a real 8-17 year old would not have access to. It was really refreshing to see an image taken with a COOLPIX camera for example in the 11-14 category, showing that an eye catching and interesting image can be taken without the air of daddys 800mm £12000 lens being the one actually behind the shot. Sadly this optimism was short lived with of course the overall childrens winner being an image taken by an apparent 11-14 year old using a £3000 5D MK3 camera, with £1800+ underwater housing and strobe lighting to boot. It is again a shame as the image is lovely, but highlights the elitism and scepticism of who actually took the photo in this part of the competition.

The grand winner I was actually happy with this year as it was a dynamic, funny and sad image all in one, capturing a true life or death moment between predator and prey. It certainly beats the last few winners which have in some part boggled my mind as to how they have come to win this competition. My favorite overall image however was a photo of two mice fighting on the london underground. An image that for some unknown reason did not even get into the 100 selected images, but instead was one of the ‘people choice’ options that can be voted for separately. How this was not winning/competing in the Urban wildlife category I do not know.

But my main gripe this year was with the sheer number of entrants from a few well known professional photographers that seemed to dominate some of the categories. One of these said professionals was Charlie Hamilton James. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not salty, some of his images are amazing and deserve a place here, but others I just think did not deserve such a high standing given their technical misgivings. My first gripe was his image that won in the urban environment category. His shot of some rats coming out of a drain is a great shot, but looking closer at the image it was taken with a flash yet the ISO was at 1800, leaving the background visibly grainy and for me taking away something from the overall image. Now don’t get me wrong it is a nice image but a category winner…..? No chance.

How the image below was pipped by the rats image is beyond me.

Mr Hamilton James crops up again with another couple of images (below), again taken with ISO’s over 1000 in broad daylight!! It begs the question; why include each images camera details if this is not also being taken into consideration when judging? Does the technical details not matter at all when considering finalists or winners, or can we all just stick the camera on auto and cross our fingers? who needs an understanding and skill of how to take and control the camera right? These two images in particular baffled me in their inclusion for these reasons. The lions head is out of focus/blurred in one of his photos, while the elephant image is a nice enough shot but not exactly groundbreaking or showing us something different and unique. Seeing as they bragged at having over 48 thousand entrants to choose from, I find it slightly odd that this one photographer made it in here so often. Now they made a very big point in their books introduction that judges did not know the names and nationalities selected until it was down to finalists, but I just dont think this rings true, and surely there were others from the 48 thousand plus entrants that were technically and visually better than these for inclusion once they realised mr Hamilton Jones had 3 entries in the top 100?

hopefully I will be back next month with an action backed blog after a lovely trip to Amsterdam. That is of course unless Coronavirus track’s me down and kills me first.

Wish me luck!

FIN

Feb 29 Miracle

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Feb 29 Miracle

Mar 28 Tech Noir

Jan 26 Good News

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