Garden Photographer of The Year

IGOPTY is an annual competition to find the great images of plants and gardens from photographers around the world. If you have any interest in this area of photography then this web site and the associated exhibition is an absolute must for you. The images are universally beautiful and engaging; you ask yourself if it is this easy, it is photography in a garden, why can’t I do it. I guess it is about a great understanding of the use of your camera, huge amounts of patience, the desire to be there at the best moment and attention to detail. We can help with the camera bit with our courses on understanding your camera and with help on improving your composition and the use of software to make the most of your images we can help too. However the getting up before dawn to be in the right place at the right time that is up to you. To see the full gallery of winning and placed images go here to the IGOPTY site

Volker Michael – Finalist First Rays Jistrum, Friesland, The Netherlands

Rosanna Castrini – Commended The Ring Piedmont, Italy

Jianjun Huang – Commended Charming Dongjiang Guangdong Province, China

Lili Gao – Finalist Waiting Dandong City, Liaoning Province, China

Stefano Coltelli – Commended Plitvice Falls The Plitvice Lakes National Park, Plitvicka Jezera, Croatia

The winner is

This late autumn photo – from Snowdonia National Park in North Wales – has been crowned the overall winner of the 10th annual International Garden Photographer of the Year competition.

Taken by Lee Acaster, and entitled Left, this stark image won the Trees, Woods and Forests category – and then beat thousands of other entries to win the top spot.

Garden designer Chris Beardshaw – one of the competition judges – says the photo “perfectly encapsulates both the extremes of fortune and personality of these giants”.

While Clare Foggett – who edits The English Garden Magazine – says the image “draws the viewer in, to reveal the still surface of the lake behind. It demands closer inspection”.

If you wish you can see these and many more on the BBC website that has a major feature on the competition and winners

The exhibition is toured and here are dates

Venue	Exhibition	Photographs
November 1st 2016 – Feb 28th 2017	The Beth Chatto Gardens, Colchester, ENGLAND	9	Outdoor selection from Competition 9
January 14th – March 5th	National Trust Sissinghurst Castle & Gardens, ENGLAND	9	Indoor exhibition, competition 9
January 21st – March 1st 2017	Willis Museum Gallery, Basingstoke, ENGLAND	9	Indoor exhibition, competition 9
Feb 4th – March 12th 2017	Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, London, ENGLAND	10	IGPOTY Annual launch ceremony – winners of Competition 10 [indoor exhibition] announced to the public.
March 24th – June 18th 2017	de Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS	10	Outdoor selection from Competition 10
April 1st – June 4th 2017	RHS Garden Hyde Hall, Rettendon, ENGLAND	10	Outdoor selection from Competition 10
April 1st – November 15th 2017	The Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle, Merano, South Tyrol, ITALY	10	Outdoor exhibition, competition 10
April 1st – November 15th 2017	Gibraltar Botanic Gardens (The Alameda), GIBRALTAR	10	Outdoor exhibition, competition 10
August 28th – October 29th 2017	National Trust Sheringham Park, Norfolk, ENGLAND	10	Outdoor exhibition, competition 10

Wildlife Photographer of the Year – People’s Choice

I saw this on the BBC website and thought you might like it, there are many more images there to see so go and have a look, here is a link

Vote for the People’s Choice Award here before 10 January 2017.

The exhibition runs until 10 September 2017. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.

Shortly after purchasing the Giraffe Manor in Nairobi, Kenya, the owners learned that the only remaining Rothschild’s giraffes in the country were at risk, as their sole habitat was being subdivided into smallholdings. So they began a breeding programme to reintroduce the Rothschild’s giraffe into the wild. Today, guests can enjoy visits from resident giraffes in search of a treat.Breakfast time
Cari Hill, New Zealand

The kingfisher frequented this natural pond every day, and Mario Cea used a high shutter speed with artificial light to photograph it. He used several units of flash for the kingfisher and a continuous light to capture the wake as the bird dived down towards the water.The blue trail
Mario Cea, Spain

These snow geese almost seemed like ghosts in the pink early morning light as they landed among sandhill cranes in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, US.Ghostly snow geese
Gordon Illg, US

Alain Mafart Renodier was on a winter visit to Japan’s Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park when he took this photograph of a sleeping baby Japanese macaque, its mother’s hand covering its head protectively.A mother’s hand
Alain Mafart Renodier, France

Tapio Kaisla took a trip to Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjell National Park, Norway, to find these oxen in their natural habitat. Even though spring is not rutting season for these animals, they were already seriously testing their strength against each other. The air rang out with the loud bang of the head-on collision.Head-on
Tapio Kaisla, Finland

Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2016

I know you have been waiting for this, now the winner has been announced

FIRST PRIZE: Claudio Rasano

Katlehong Matsenen 2016 from the series Similar Uniforms: We Refuse to Compare by Claudio Rasano, February 2016
© Claudio Rasano
First Prize: £15,000

Swiss-Italian photographer Claudio Rasano was born in 1970, Basel, Switzerland. The portrait, which is part of the series Similar Uniforms: We Refuse to Compare was taken in Johannesburg, South Africa and focuses on issues of preserving individuality in the context of school uniforms. The photograph was shot in daylight, outdoors and in front of a plain white paper background. The sitter for this particular pigment print is eighteen year old Katlehong Matsenen.

 

any comments about school photography gratefully accepted

here is a link to the TW award site

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016

It is that time of year when the various award and competitions in photography announce their winners. This is always a very popular award with many different sections. The images are universally remarkable and express the dedication and technical skill of the winners.

This image won the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016 award, and depicts an endangered young male orangutan climbing a 100-foot high tree in the Gunung Palung National Park, Indonesia

Indian photographer Ganesh H Shankar won the Birds category for capturing a rose-ringed parakeet kicking a Bengal monitor lizard out of its roosting hole, a campaign that lasted two days before the lizard squatter gave up

Images from both professional and amateur photographers are selected for their creativity, artistry and technical complexity.

Swedish photographer Mats Andersson triumphed in the black-and-white category with his touching photo of an owl mourning the death of its partner, taken in a forest near his home in Bashult, southern Sweden. 

Other winners included Luis Javier Sandoval, from Mexico, with his photo of a playful California sea lion pup for the Impressions category. And Ganesh H Shankar, from India, with his image of a rose-ringed parakeet harassing a monitor lizard.

Luis Javier Sandoval, from Mexico, won the Impressions category for his tricky underwater photo of a playful California sea lion pup grabbing a starfish near shore break at sunrise in Espiritu Santo Island near La Paz Baja California Sur, Mexico

Winner of the urban category was Nayan Khanolkar, who captured a solitary leopard slinking down an alleyway in a suburb of Mumbai bordering Sanjay Gandhi national park, where the Warli tribe has learned to co-exist with the nocturnal big cats

see more here

The exhibition opens at the Natural History Museum on October 21, before touring across the UK

Gideon Knight, 16, from the UK, won the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year title for his poetic image of a moonlit crow on a sycamore tree , a sight he described as reminding him of ‘something out of a fairy tale’

You can book tickets for the exhibition

Book Tickets Here 

• 21 October 2016 – 10 September 2017

• South Kensington

• Adult £10.50 – £13.50
  Child and concession £6.50 – £8
  Family £27 – £36.90

Malick Sidibé: The Eye of Modern Mali – Exhibition in London

Les jeunes bergers peulhs, 1972.
Photograph: © Malick Sidibé Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris.

Jeune homme avec pattes d’éléphant, sacoche et montre, 1977.
Photograph: © Malick Sidibé Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris.

The first major solo exhibition in the UK of the late Malian photographer. Sidibé is known for his black-and-white images chronicling the lives and culture of the Malian capital, Bamako, in the wake of the country’s independence. The exhibition will present 45 original prints from the 1960s and 1970s around three defined themes: ‘Au Fleuve Niger / Beside the Niger River’, ‘Tiep à Bamako / Nightlife in Bamako’, and ‘Le Studio / The Studio’.

Sidibé was the first photographer, and first African artist, to receive a Gold Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. Other significant awards include The Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography in 2003, as well as the Infinity Award from International Center of Photography in 2008 and winning the Arts and Entertainments category at the World Press Photo competition in 2010.

Accompanying the photographs, the gallery soundtrack will recreate the spirit and soul of the nightclubs where he shot and his own Studio Malick, where “often it was like a party”. Curated by DJ, presenter and African music expert Rita Ray, it will feature an eclectic mix of music and urban sounds to which Sidibé’s photographic subjects may have listened, from the familiar rock ‘n’ roll, pop songs and fusions of the continent in the 60s and 70s to timeless Malian roots music.

Launching at 1:54, the exhibition will continue throughout the winter season.

6 October 2016–15 January 2017
Monday, Tuesday, Saturday & Sundays 10.00-18.00 (last admission 17.00)
Wednesdays, Thursdays & Fridays 11.00-20.00 (last admission 19.00)
Terrace Rooms
Free admission

From The Guardian

As a photographer working in Mali just after independence, Malick Sidibé captured the spirit of the post-colonial nation’s new identity, as seen through the changing scene of its capital.

Taximan avec voiture.
Photograph: Malick Sidibé/Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Malick Sidibé, 1936-2016 – in pictures

He went on to become the first African artist and the first photographer to receive the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale, and his portrait photography has been shown across the world.

But less is known about the place it all started: Studio Malick, the poky room on Corner 19, 30th Street, in the Bagadadji neighbourhood in Bamako which by the early 1990s had become a local landmark, with queues of customers keen to sit for a portrait.

As the first solo exhibition of his work opens in London as part of the 1:54 African art fair, I went in search of the people who had met the man, to find out more about the setting in which these now famous images were taken……

 

See more pictures here

Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016

At Royal Museums Greenwich there is an exhibition of images from the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016.

View the spectacular images by the 2016 Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year winners for each category, the Young Competition, as well as our Robotic Scope prize and Sir Patrick Moore for Best Newcomer prize winners. These pictures capture all manner of celestial spectacles: moons, stars, planets, galaxies, nebulae and some of the great astronomical events of the last year.

Address:	Blackheath Avenue London SE10 8XJ
Opening hours:	Daily 10am-5pm (last admission 4.30pm)
Transport:	Rail: Cutty Sark/Greenwich DLR
Price:	Free
Event website:	http://www.rmg.co.uk/astrophoto

William Eggleston Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery

Time Out reviews the William Eggleston Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery until 23rd October 2016

©William Eggleston

Legendary Memphis photographer William Eggleston has created a whole genre of psychologically ambiguous Americana, much of it centred on apparently mundane bits of his home town. I expected that isolating his portraits from the rest of his work wouldn’t work. How would they fare, without all those existential landscapes and unanswered questions to problematise them? In fact, this show really makes you realise all over again this man’s extraordinary genius and oddness.

Two photos in this show, both from the early 1970s, really nail the whole Eggleston thing. The first is a tiny photobooth black-and-white self-portrait. In it, Eggleston seems remote: a fine-boned, bespectacled, Mahleresque face, a foppish college scarf, one of those monied, long-all-over haircuts. The second is a photo of his friend, weirdo Memphis dentist TC Boring. Boring is in the house in which he would later be murdered and incinerated. He is standing naked in a moment of reflection. The bedroom is blood red, with ‘God’ and ‘Tally Ho!’ sprayed on the wall. The colour hums, as though the print itself were struggling to keep Boring alive: it’s terrible, hilarious, disturbing and uncontrived, all at the same time. How did that man take this photo?

It’s one thing to imply alienation and dread with a grim motel room or a deserted parking lot. It’s quite another to manage to do so – as Eggleston does here – in a picture of your nephew sitting at home in an armchair. A portrait of the dead blues musician Fred McDowell in his casket is way less troubling than a shot of Eggleston’s wife taking a nap on a bed in front of a buzzing untuned TV and a sinister open closet. Time and again, Eggleston shows us that a picture of a person is never a simple thing.

This is not a big show, for a man who is supposed to have taken more than a million photographs, but I could spend a week in it, happily. Or a year. You have to see Eggleston’s work edited in this way. And you have to see his photos in the flesh (including Mr Boring’s knob). If I could give it six stars, I would.

BY: CHRIS WAYWELL

©William Eggleston

©William Eggleston

National Portrait Gallery St Martin’s Place London WC2H 0HE 020 7306 0055 Contact us Opening hours Daily 10.00 – 18.00 Thursdays and Fridays until 21.00. Last admission to the exhibition is one hour before the Gallery closes. Exiting commences ten minutes before the closing time.

An Exhibition not to miss. Microsculpture by Levon Biss

I know I only just blogged about this but at the weekend I went to see the exhibition by Levon Biss at The Museum of Natural History in Oxford. Yes I know you realise it was madness, the place was full of kids and I could have gone any day of the week when the little ones were at school but there you are I had time, it was a nice day to ride my bike and I had an hour or two spare. I had seen Levon’s pictures on screen, zoomed into them a bit and was wowed but I was not prepared for the size of the images on display, the multi-coloured grasshopper thing is about 4m wide and the jewel bug thing the same high, these are huge and utterly fantastic. What is more they have the actual specimens that were photographed to make the photographic images on display they are literally this big XXX I am not one for exaggeration and any form of wild life photography leaves me cold but the techniques involved, the precision and quality of work is breath taking. When you go, and you must, then make sure you listen to the video explanation and do have a play with the touch screen thing.

It is at The Museum of Natural History, Parks Road, Oxford. Here is a link to the previous post with all the exhibition details

Sony World Photography National Awards

There are many photography awards, the Sony version is not my favourite but with every award or competition there are some that stand out. Here are some from the current national awards

The winners and runners-up in the Sony World Photography National Awards have been revealed. An expert panel selected the best image taken by a photographer from each of the 60 participating countries.

Here is a selection of some of the winners as shown on the BBC website

 

Image copyright Minh Thanh NgoImage captionThe winner for Vietnam, Minh Thanh Ngo, focused on the traditional custom of lighting lanterns on the Perfume River in Hue City.

Image copyrightPedro Diaz MolinsImage captionPedro Diaz Molins took first place for Spain with this image of an old couple on a beach.

Image copyrightKhairel Anuar Che AniImage captionWinner for Malaysia was Khairel Anuar Che Ani who captured a tired moment while Rejang dancers wait their turn the during Melasti Festival in Bali, Indonesia.

Image caption Abhijit Banerjee was awarded first place in India with this photograph titled Gangasagar Fair, taken at India’s second-largest fair, which takes place in West Bengal’s Sagar Island.

Image copyrightLuis PortellesImage captionA colourful graphic shot by Luis Portelles was awarded third place for Canada.

Here is the Sony website

The winning images will be shown at Somerset House, London, from 24 April – 10 May.

Vogue 100: A Century of Style

Photographs from a 100 years of Vogue at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Many of the truly great photographers of the last century contributed to Vogue so just to see the works of some masters would be worth the visit. I do suppose it depends a bit on what you think about fashion in general. I am sure with two minutes to spare I could come up with some pointless cynical views on the subject but no doubt I would be in a minority, which is where I generally prefer to be.

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Now as you may imagine I know little about fashion photography so here is a review in Time Out of the exhibition by someone who gives it 5 stars

Not just a pretty face – the style bible is a reflection of our times.

Fashion may be fickle, but the fashion photographer’s lens is also a mirror. ‘Vogue 100: A Century of Style’ is as much a reflection of a hundred years of our history as it is a celebration of the original glossy.

Born in 1916 during WWI, when shipping the US magazine became impossible, BritishVogue has always been more than a fashion mag. And this exhibition is so much more than a collection of pretty models in pretty clothes – Boris Johnson has found his way on to the walls, for goodness’ sake! JG Ballard and Aldous Huxley have both written for Vogue. A pre-fatwa Salmon Rushdie has shared an issue with John Galliano, years before the latter’s fall from grace. Both Queen Elizabeth and her boozy mum have appeared. And, of course, most of the century’s best photographers have shot for its pages. Exhibition curator (and contributing editor to British Vogue) Robin Muir gave Tim Walker, the man responsible for many of today’s most fantastical Vogue shoots, his first job in the 1990s: archiving Cecil Beaton’s work for the magazine from the 1930s.

In this thoughtfully arranged show, it’s the little details that make the difference – from the cocktail style menu of credits in the 1930s room to the wall of seemingly disparate portraits of actress Helena Bonham Carter, milliner Stephen Jones and model Ben Grimes-Viort – united by a colour scheme of feathery pink. A side room shows a series of slides from the ’40s to the ’90s; as though you’re in the cutting room, you watch images go from picture to page.

There’s a charming library of bound copies in which you can survey the century of Vogue as a physical thing. A peek at the pages reveals coverage of major events with far-reaching consequences, like the bloody Alsace campaign at the end of WWII, as reported by Vogue’s very own war correspondent (and former model) Lee Miller. There are also moments of fashion history that reflect societal leaps, such as the launch in 1947 of Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’, which celebrated the end of austerity with its extravagant layers of fabric. Or Donyale Una becoming Vogue’s first black model, gracing the cover in 1968 – a whole ten years before US Vogue would do the same. British Vogue has been around for a century and, in one way or another, it has documented it all in the most beautiful fashion. 

BY: MIRIAM BOUTEBA

National Portrait Gallery St Martin’s Place London WC2H 0HE 020 7306 0055 Contact us Opening hours Daily 10.00 – 18.00 Thursdays and Fridays until 21.00. Last admission to the exhibition is one hour before the Gallery closes. Exiting commences ten minutes before the closing time

On until the start of May