Tag Archives: Serengeti NP

Getting into the judges’ minds

Dear all,

If you follow Pics from the wild on FB, you will have noticed that I have been giving it a serious shot to guess the April Wild Eye Nature photography competition winner. You also may have noticed that I ‘failed’ miserably. Only 1 of my guesses was in the top 10 and none of them was in the top 3. I must say that I have seriously considered 5 of the other highly commended images, yet that the remaining 4 would, despite being great shots, never ever be in my top 10 (check out the winning images here). Does this mean the judges have it wrong, NO, does it mean my photographic eye is off, could be, yet I think not, does it mean the other entries sucked, not at all (check out all the April entries here), … It does mean though that your mood and personal experiences influence what you like at a certain point in time. Something that also goes for the judges, again portraying the difficulty in actually knowing what will catch their eye, since after all, that is what a competition is about. And that brings me back to an issue I’ve raised before, when entering shots into a competition, don’t stick to your own opinion, yet dare to go out of your comfort zone and ask for feedback from others, and dare to enter shots you’re not sure abot yourself!

Here’s one of my entries for this month, a potential winner? No idea, personally I like the shot, since I know hyraxes as being prone to disappearing in between the rocks, yet to somebody who has a rock outcrop in the back of his/her garden, inhabited by this species, this might not be special at all, … the only way to find out is by entering it 😉

Canon 350D, Canon 75-300 @ 130 mm, f/5.6, 1/1600, ISO 200

Finally and most importatly, I absolutely enjoyed going throught the images and analyzing what I liked and why. On top of that, I’ve been sharing some great images, and that in itself is what it is all about! That being said, if you have some spare time and you are prepared to be inspired, check the work of two clear front runners in the competition so far, and for obvious reasons: Isak Pretorious and Mark Dumbleton whom if I’m not mistaken both havn’t been absent from the top 10 since January.

Have a great week,

Guy