Photographer Research
Previous Competition Winners:
Competition 1 Winners
Since I am entering these competitions aiming to get a high place, it seemed logical to look at the previous winning images of the 4 competitions. All of the images are to a professional standard, often in a portrait style image or of the animal in a human like or even comical pose, likely to draw in those viewing the images more easily. |
There were no available images from the second competition to review
Competition 3 Winners
The previous winners of these competitions' images are all produced to a professional standard, often possessing strong foci and a large depth of field resulting in a lot of detail, especially of the animals themselves. They also have very complimentary backgrounds, either working well with the composition and colour scale of the fauna in the foreground. |
Competition 4 Winners
Whilst the more open nature of this competition has meant more amateur level images have been accepted, they still generally possess the anthropomorphic qualities of the other competitions previous winners. They feature strong foci with varying shutter speeds. likely due to the more amateur level photographers/equipment used in some of the images, with the comical/human like quality to the images compensating for the focuses. |
Craig Jones
Craig Jones is an award winning wildlife photographer who has worked in the field of wildlife photographer for "for as long as he can remember". His images possess a strong character about the wildlife, almost giving them a personality, causing them to be far more effective than standard wildlife imagery. Each of the images have the wildlife in a "pose" towards the camera, providing a more than charismatic feel that attracts viewers more than a simple image of wildlife. His images also have simplistic backgrounds that don't draw too much focus away from the main focus of the images, the wildlife. These are factors I will pay close attention to when taking my own images.
www.craigjoneswildlifephotography.co.uk/ |
Tim Flach
Tim Flach is an award winning photographer who works extensively with wildlife, predominantly in a studio setting. Like Craig Jones, his images mainly involve simplistic backgrounds and with the wildlife "posing" in the foreground in a way that give a personality to the fauna. He also has worked with both general wildlife and macro fauna, something I too intend to do with my project. Whilst taking images in a studio is likely unfeasible in this project (especially due to the COVID pandemic), I may attempt to creature a makeshift mini studio and use it to take studio style images of macro fauna, though this will purely be a route of possible experimentation. Flach also has uses a large depth of field in his work, likely due to being able to control lighting better in a studio environment.
timflach.com/ |
David Tipling
David Tipling is a heavily published and renowned British wildlife photographer who works almost exclusively taking images of birds. His work often involves high shutter speed images, catching the birds mid flight while still maintaining a high level of focus and detail, especially on the animal's face. Making use of high shutter speeds on animals in motion is something I will need to consider with my project, though that will be very dependant on the natural lighting available. |
Heather Angel
Heather Angel is renowned for her wildlife photography work, winning numerous awards over her long and distinguished career. She has produced a great number of projects, featuring wildlife from all over the world. Like Flach and Jones, her images involve subtle backgrounds with a strong and characterful fauna "posing" in the foreground. Her work often involves a much smaller F.stop, with a small depth of field though still having a strong focus on the eyes of the wildlife, a strong contrast to Flach's focus heavy images. From this I plan to experiment with varying depth of fields in my work, whilst using the apparent technique of utilising a smaller depth of field when shooting outside and making what can be a handicap into something that can prove very effective in images.
https://heatherangelphotography.co.uk/ |
Stephen Dalton
Stephen Dalton is a photographer who works heavily with wildlife, often taking images in studio setups design to replicate a natural environment. He generally works with macro fauna or small wildlife. He also makes use of flash with his images, especially when it comes to fauna in flight. https://www.stephendalton.co.uk/ |
Arguments over the Anthropomorphisation of Animals
Researching into wildlife photography, I have discovered that the anthropomorphisation of animals is somewhat of a hot button issue. The arguments against it is that it forces an unrealistic image onto the animals and with that certain unrealistic expectations for the animals behaviour and social needs. This can cause animals in captivity or who interact with humans to be mistreated or stressed easily in ways the people don't realise can cause harm. The contrary argument is that anthropomorphism can create a greater appeal to the general public, hence drumming up more support for causes that support wildlife protection. These are issues I will need to pay close attention to when shooting my project since the project centres quite heavily around the anthropomorphisation of wildlife. Research Sources:
https://protecttheharvest.com/what-you-need-to-know/anthropomorphism-is-the-greatest-threat-to-animal-welfare/ https://sites.ualberta.ca/~elegge/Alrg_Docs/Wynne_2007.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/428606a https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-012-0274-6 |