Stampeding Antelopes by Neil Aldridge Wins Top European Wildlife Photo

[gsgary]

I like the winning photo much better than his others

 

[Derrel]

Anything genuinely different and new is going to be panned simply because it does not resemble the old.

I don't mean to suggest that nobody's made a blurry photo before, or even that this is a particularly great photo. But it's difficult to tell, sometimes, if we're looking at crap or simply something unfamiliar.

I am reminded of Anton Ego's monologue at the end of Ratatouille, which is, oddly enough, one if the best pieces of writing on criticism of our century.

cliiiiiiiick-bait

 

[gsgary]

There have been some very controversial winners in a number of photography shows. At times, I think picking a rather weak or shoddy shot as the grand prize winner might even be done deliberately, as a way to generate controversy and the ensuing publicity. It really is a weak image in its genre. It has boring, flat light. It's difficult to over emphasize the fact that the picture has absolutely chitty light. Realllly muddy. But, apparently somebody thinks it reminds him of cave art. Anyway... this is the image link _78529021_78529017.jpg

It's controversial. It's apparently "the best wildlife image" they could dig up in all of Europe for this year. Orrrrrr--is it as I suspect, simply click-bait?

I think in the last 5 years there have been 2 cheats in the World Wildlife awards one of a trained wolf jumping a gate, a chap at our club keeps winning with Kingfishers and the beginners can't understand how he keeps getting shot of them coming out of the water with fish, i tell them he cheats, he is up early catching fish in a bucket places a stick in the bank and the bucket underneath and just has to wait simply

 

[runnah]

I didn't realize antelope were native to Europe.

 

[Designer]

If the photo was entered in a different contest, say; Abstracts Anonymous, or some such, then it can go ahead and win, but in a contest about wildlife, it should not have won.

 

[Vince.1551]

Let's put it this way. As a set of photos, let's say for a distinction exam, I can understand the distinctive style. As a single prize winning shot it does not do justice to the top award.

I just took a quick look at the judges and derived how the image could get top prize. ;-)

Anyway I look at the series of entries and sorry to say I've seen much better ones year on year in global international competitions on Nature Division. Sad to say, sometimes in a panel of judges some judges tend to influence the decision of other judges...


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[fotomonkey]

Hell, I take pics like that all the time but delete them. Time to start entering some contests.

 

[snerd]

Lew, there is no option to add a poll by editing the op.

 

[Vince.1551]

It's a nice image, agreed, but I can't imagine how it can rate as the top wildlife image for an entire continent!!

I don't think it represents the entire continent. At least I'm sure UK wouldn't agree


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[vintagesnaps]

I think it's kind of cool. I've done some experimenting with the camera once in awhile and come up with something rather abstract, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

I think this somewhat got lost in translation. It is the 'GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year' competition. GDT = 'Society of German Nature Photographers' (in German). Apparently they accept entries from other countries in Europe besides Germany; it's their organization's wildlife photographer of the year based on this competition.

Here's the original source - Gesellschaft Deutscher Tierfotografen e.V.
Many of the entries to me seem more abstract or ethereal, etc. This competition seems to be for more nontraditional photos.

 

[bentcountershaft]

I don't remember the last time I agreed with expert judges on results in anything subjective.

 

[tirediron]

Hell, I take pics like that all the time but delete them. Time to start entering some contests.

That's my issue: If I had captured this image, there's about a 99.999957% chance that it would have been left on the cutting-room floor. If I had decided to keep it because of the cool, abstract nature, it would NEVER have occurred to me to enter it in this contest. HOW do you look at an image like that and deem in entry-worthy? What part of my photographer's eye is not seeing the way it should????

 

[Vince.1551]

Two of the female judges have strong fine arts background. Preference for abstracts could be easily derived. Influencing male judges is easy peasy. Not unusual for a judging panel.


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[Fred Berg]

Perhaps it's not typical for the genre wildlife and so will be bound to raise a few eyebrows. However, it is a photo that is memorable, which in itself is untypical of the genre, imo.

 

[photoguy99]

Maybe it matters having been there. Maybe he saw it on the screen or the contact sheet or whatever and said

'Whoa. Yeah. THAT is what it felt like.'