Oxford School of Photography

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Daily Archives: September 28, 2012

National Geographic Photo Contest 2012

As reported in the excellent the Atlantic magazine:

Once again, National Geographic is holding its annual photo contest, with the deadline for submissions coming up on November 30. Beginning on September 1, the society started gathering and presenting galleries of submissions, encouraging readers to vote for them as well. National Geographic was kind enough to let me choose among its entries from 2012 for display here on In Focus. Gathered below are 50 images from the three categories of People, Places, and Nature, with captions written by the individual photographers.

Here is a sample of some of the 50 images in the gallery here

Ninja Kangaroos: Young male kangaroos test their strength with “boxing” matches that mostly occur at dawn. One buck gets in the others face with its forepaws until the second one concedes and hops away, or stands up tall and faces its tormentor. Then the two grapple until an advantage is gained and one rears back onto its tail and kicks out with both its feet. Here the roo on the left clearly has its opponent on the retreat. Photo taken at Lake Cootharaba, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. (© raoul slater/National Geographic Photo Contest) #

Yosemite Valley at Dusk: A mist had settled over Yosemite Valley, as automobiles passed through, headlights illuminated the fog. (© Phil Hawkins/National Geographic Photo Contest) #

Chaos: A huge flock of Red-billed Queleas flies in to drink at the same time as an African Elephant in Tsavo National Park, Kenya. (© Antero Topp/National Geographic Photo Contest) #

Butterfly at sunset: Photographer Toni Guetta submitted this macro shot of a butterfly with the sunset in the background near Hod ha’sharon, Israel. (© Toni Guetta/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Depth of Field

At this point in our term we find ourselves talking about depth of field a lot to our students on our Understanding Your Digital SLR Camera Course and on our Understanding Your Compact Camera Course and on the Portrait Photography course it will also get an honourable mention on the Composition course. Depth of field is something everyone recognises but often ignores because it is not catered for in the fully auto settings many beginners choose to use. We think it is one of the most creative tools available to any photographer who photographs things that are reasonable static, which let’s face it is most of us. So I thought a little round up of past posts on the subject would be useful and make it easier for you to find these things on our blog.

©Keith Barnes Laos 2011

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/depth-of-field-a-photographers-guide-a-light-stalking-guide/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/understanding-depth-of-field-and-showing-some-self-control/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/8-effects-every-photographer-should-know-about/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/cambridge-in-colour-tutorials-intermediate/