Eco-photography Competition

i-fink.com - written by teens, for teens

Photography Competition Winners

The winners and runners-up have been decided! The Planet Patrol & i-fink eco-photography competitions were judged by Rob Roy, a Sydney photographer and IT web guru who is currently working overseas in London. rob roy

We ran an eco-photography competition to encourage kids to take a close look at nature and at how truly beautiful it is. The great prizes were donated by Rouse Hill National Geographic store.

Digital cameras mean that photography is easy and cheap. You can just snap away and choose the best shot. But...to take a REALLY good eco-shot, you have to get down and really observe what makes nature tick.

camera

This is a great little website to give you some tips on photography: www.bbc.co.uk/arts/apictureofbritain/how_to

Here are the winners and Rob's comments:

i-fink.com winners - 13 and above:

Winner - Nick Rider - Butterfly in Vienna

This wonderful environmental study of a butterfly in a garden is a real winner.

The composition (how the parts of a photo are arranged in the frame) is textbook-perfect, with the placement of the flowers and butterfly at the top, the starbursts of leaves at bottom left and the lovely sweeping leaf on the right that hugs it all together and frames the scene.

I also love how the head, body and legs of the butterfly are beautifully sharp, while the blurred wings give a sense of movement and even contribute an arrow leading the eye to the focal point. Excellent!

Runner up - Nick Robinson - Night Fire

A powerful long-exposure capture (shutter open for 10 whole seconds!).

This lighting burst fairly crackles and shows nature at its most powerful and dramatic.

This frame required good technical skills and more than a little luck but, to paraphrase a famous man, the more you prepare the luckier you get. Well composed and executed, and I love the purple clouds!

Planet Patrol winners - 12 & under:

Winner - Emily Read - Banana Leaf

I love this closeup photo of raindrops on a fresh banana leaf. The photographer has a real eye for detail and has composed the photo beautifully. The strong diagonal composition leads the eye into the photograph to explore. The ribs running off the central spine and the leaf surface between them look look like an aerial photograph of mountain ridges, and the water droplets catch and refract the light in interesting ways. Simple but beautiful, and a great example of how you can find beauty at any level of nature! (unfortunately we can't show this lovely photo as the winner hasn't supplied it in a suitable format)

Runner up - Alex Coppinger - Grevillia with water droplets

A very different look at water droplets here.

The stunning pink flower forms a background to the extra-sharp detail of the grey hair-like centre with its massive water drops.

The photo is nicely composed, keeping the main viewpoint off-centre, and it shows good use of depth-of-field with the main point of interest in focus and the background nicely blurry. Lovely.

We also awarded a Special Mention prize to Maddie Watson for her photo of Milson Sound

which made us want to immediately put on our walking boots!

Well done to everyone though - we think it was a big ask of Rob to choose the best as each photo had some interesting aspects to it. A big 'thank you' to him for lending his technical and creative genius to our competition. Thanks also to the fabulous National Geographic Shop in Rouse Hill for donating the fun prizes. Also 'thank you' to all those who entered, just the fact that you took the time and effort to do something out of the ordinary makes you winners.

We had such a great time choosing the prizes for you in the new Rouse Hill Australian Geographic Shop. The staff there are friendly and helpful and the stuff in the store is just fantastic ...we'd have liked it all!

You can find Australian Geographic at: Shop GR 50, 10-14 Market Lane, Rouse Hill:
Phone: 02 9257 0093
If you can't get there, you'll find a store near you: www.australiangeographicshop.com.au

aust geo logo

Here's a few more photos sent in for the competition:

By Jaydia of Canada

Mountain goats by Alex, Canada

From Alex

By Dale