Wildlife Photo Competition 1 2014 : Judges Critiques : Page

Just magic. Polar bear with her two cubs huddling together on their ice walk. The empty, icy background makes this so peaceful and enhances the beautiful off white tones of the bears, their black noses and eyes, so sweet. What a fabulous opportunity, and once again the overcast flat light really makes the picture special. Very well done, so close. PS mind that signature, it does distract from such a harmonious composition.

This is a powerful composition. The close crop of mother and baby gibbons make one graphic half picture, very sharp and a beautiful image of a child/mother relationship. The background makes the other, counter weight half, backlit and very blurred. Nice use of high ISO permits this unusual mix of high though still soft contrast. There is a slight flare though if we really start looking for a point to deduct, which is a shame. Beautiful, well done.

Nice shot, maybe a little closer? That thistle flower would be great close up as would of course the butterfly.

A well spotted shot and one for the fun collection. Nice reflections of the reptiles but also of the environment fill the empty space creatively.

This was an instant favourite. We have lots of racoons in this competition but I think this is the first to be climbing a tree. Full marks for the “aww” factor but the standard of the winners is just to high for this to break through.

This is a beautiful leopard shot, he looks so pleased. You have captured a lovely expressive portrait, his tail turning happily and his look of absolute content, but you have a very visible and damaging fringe problem under the branch and around his hanging paw. Either you have made that by accident when adjusting the exposure of that zone, or it is due to dispersion, a chromatic aberration caused by the different colours in light bending at different degrees as they pass through the lens. This problem is particularly visible with lower quality lenses and along the fringes of high contrast zones, especially when you have opened your aperture right up to get this nice bokeh effect. I wonder if this fringe wasn’t less noticeable before you darkened the sky?

You have caught the nice light but have pushed the contrast levels perhaps a little too much around this handsome puma’s nose, making the white a bit harsh. The whiskers look pretty good though. Beautiful animal and what a privilege to be able to photograph him like this.

The dark tones and all green colours convey the deep jungle feel very well. You have mastered your photo, focus is just spot on, the empty space balances the whole and keeps our eye on the frog. Nice work.

This is nice with a real life fresh feel, nice framing with this curious lizard just in the right place, good focussing too keeps our eye on the subject. Well done.

Tigers are good subjects for close up portraits, all of those contrasting tones and stripes make a very graphical picture. You have chosen a wide aperture which is a good idea for this sort of detailed shot but unfortunately only one eye is sharp which makes the other, still very much part of the frame, a little uncomfortable to look at. The colours are nice and I like the black background. Good shot but it doesn’t have that something special to make it really pop.