Bird Photo Competition 4 2016
Results
Winning Photo

Judges Comment

Thanks to the ever-evolving capabilities of camera equipment and technical skills of photographers, we're now all familiar with images that freeze even the fastest of action. Capturing the moment as fast-flying birds such as these Pallid Swifts feed or drink over lakes is still incredibly difficult, but has been achieved by many photographers. Such endeavours invariably lead to huge numbers of failed attempts for each successful image and, looking at this shot, many would relegate it to the 'near miss' category due to the lack of sharp focus on the bird exhibiting the strongest action. For me, however, the plane of focus and depth-of-field could not be more perfect than in this shot, since they lead us to see the action from the perspective of the rear bird. For a moment, we're transported into the body of a swift as we observe another skimming the water's surface. The ability of a photograph to take us into the swifts' world is amazing and the recognition by the photographer that this had been achieved in this case deserves acknowledgement. We're now living in an era in which we could make everything sharp, but to do so would be a mistake: the challenge is to make creative use of 'unsharpness' to create the most compelling images.

Photographers Comment

I would like to thank the organizers and Mike Atkinson for selecting my picture among so many beautiful bird pictures. It is a great honor to receive this award. I have been photographing swifts for a while as a find them a great photographic theme. These incredible birds spend almost their whole life in the air. They feed, sleep, mate on the wing. The picture I selected for this competition shows two Pallid Swifts (Apus pallidus) the moment they dive towards a pool of water to capture floating insects. This feeding behavior takes place so fast that it is almost impossible to even see what is going on especially when tens of birds do it simultaneously one after the other. Getting one bird in the frame is normally a success. In this case I was lucky enough to get two birds in the frame. The picture was taken using a Canon EOS 7D mkII and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L. Nikos Fokas
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