Ballintoy dolphin photo wins British Wildlife Photography award

An underwater photo of a bottlenose dolphin surfing a wave at Ballintoy, County Antrim has won the top prize at the 2013 British Wildlife Photography Awards.

The winning photo, called In the Living Room, was taken by photographer George Karbusa, a professional free diver originally from the Czech Republic, who now lives in Ireland.
George described the experience of watching a surfing dolphin as "one of the most incredible sights you can see in the ocean".
"This photograph was taken in the most intimidating and surf-heavy spot on the north coast of Ireland, called Ballintoy," he said.
"I encountered this playful dolphin that suddenly started to surf the deep tube inside the waves.
"Each time he got into the wave, I dived underneath the water, held my breath and waited for the moment when he would swish through a silver barrel close enough to my lens.
"Water visibility is always very limited in Ireland, and I was very lucky to get a shot like this."
George's winning image will be exhibited as part of an exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London from 2 September, before the it tours the UK.
The image can also be seen in a book featuring images from the awards to be published later in September.
The British Wildlife Photography Awards were established to recognise the talents of wildlife photographers working in Britain and highlight the diversity of Britain's natural history and the need for its protection.

How to Photograph Flowers

I know what you’re thinking.  “Flowers?  Really?  Didn’t he just write about shooting football?”  As a matter of fact, I did.  I shoot lots of different things– a statement which frustrates the hell out of business mentors and advisers who like to talk about branding, creating your niche, and attracting the right kind of client.  And they’re right.  After all, clients want to know that you do precisely what they need you to do seven days a week and twice on Sunday.  Makes sense.  But I was a lawyer for fourteen years.  Photography was my hobby for a long time before I ever even thought of trading in my briefcase for a camera bag ten years ago.  So, yes.  We’re going to talk about photographing flowers– in many ways the ideal subject.  Flowers are pretty, but they don’t require a hair and makeup team on set.  They are neither moody nor volatile, and never cop an attitude.  They don’t require a specific brand of expensive water secretly bottled straight from a hidden stream in Madagascar, and they are never late for a shoot.  Never.
But seriously.  I love shooting flowers.  My wife is actually convinced that I buy them for myself and not her anymore.  She’s (mostly) wrong, but I do take advantage of them while I can.  As with so much of what we do in photography, there are at least two ways of going about this–  ridiculously expensive or affordable.   Guess which way we’re going.

IT’S NOT AS EASY AT IT LOOKS

 “How can it not be as easy as it looks?” you’re asking.  They just stand there perfectly still.  Get them near the light, push the button, we’re done, right?  Not so fast.   While I would never (EVER) presume to improve upon his wisdom, my own personal addendum to this guideline is, “But if you’re not going to stand in front of more interesting stuff, at least pick a more interesting angle.”  Six of us can stand around in a circle over the same flower, shoot straight down at it, and end up with six almost identical photos.  Boring, right?  Of course it is.  If you are going to stand an average distance from something, shooting it at an average angle with average camera settings, you are going to get average photos.  Personally, I’d rather not settle for average.  So get down low.  Shoot across it.  Shoot under it.  I actually really like photographing flowers from behind.  It’s not a mortal sin if you take that straight-down-the-middle shot.  No long arm of a photography god is going to descend from the heavens and snatch your camera away.  But promise me that once you take that straight-down-the-middle shot and get it out of your system, you’ll get down on your knees, or into a chair, or on your back, or anywhere else you need to be in order to achieve that interesting angle.

THE GEAR
You’ll see some macro photographers really go all out on these images.   While a really good macro lens or a tripod with an inverted center column can help create some truly stunning images, they aren’t always necessary.  Regular zooms can serve you just as well.  Every photo in this article was taken hand-held with one of three lenses: Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8, Nikon 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 (GASP! A kit lens!), or my iPhone.  Never underestimate the value of a tripod for this kind of work.  I don’t often use one because I tend to have pretty steady hands, but having a tripod on hand is never a bad thing.  Nature tends to provide some pretty great backgrounds, but isolating a single flower on a black or white background can often make for some very compelling images.  A yard or two of black velvet from a fabric store or a poster-size piece of white foam core from an office supply store are simple, effective, and very budget-friendly options for getting that high-contrast look, indoors or out.  You could waste a lot of time creating these backgrounds in Photoshop, by why would you when the in-camera solution is so much easier?  The last piece of gear you’ll find useful is very high-tech.  A spray bottle with water will let you fake that just-rained-on look.  Just make sure it’s set to a fine mist, rather than a full spray.

START SHOOTING
As with any photo, finding the right angle only gets you halfway there.  Don’t forget everything you know about composition.  The usual considerations– Rule of Thirds, negative space, balance, etc.– all still come into play.  One of the advantages of a regular zoom lens over a macro is that by filling the frame with your flower subject, it becomes that much easier to blur out your background.  Start by focusing on one particular flower or a small cluster of flowers in the arrangement.  As you lock focus you will see the depth-of-field effect in your viewfinder.  Make sure that you don’t overdo it on the DOF.  Depending on your composition and camera settings, you could easily blur out your foreground.  Start with your widest aperture. but make sure you try several different combinations of aperture and shutter speed.  Your model is not going to get bored and give you a hard time.  Take advantage of this chance to achieve the look you want.  Remember that sometimes the whole is not always as interesting as its individual parts.  Focus in on details and textures.  Make it interesting.

HOW AND WHEN TO LIGHT IT — INDOORS AND OUT
Ultimately, diffused natural light is always at the top of my wish list.  Direct sunlight is going to blow out the subtleties and textures you’re trying so hard to capture.  As with all indoor lighting, time is less of an obstacle than when you shoot outside.  Outdoor light doesn’t care if you are photographing flowers, portraits, or a football game.  Light is light and its properties don’t change.  Just like we get the best portrait and landscape light right after the sun comes up and just before it goes down, the same goes for flowers.  We really want that soft, beautiful light to enhance these images, not overpower them.  For that, nothing beats an overcast or cloudy day– Mother Nature’s very own soft box.  For inside, use the biggest window you can find.  The side-lighting it provides will add more dimension than flat lighting from above the flower.  Whatever you do, experiment with your light.  Pay attention to where it falls and the shadows it creates.  You can also be sure that patience and time spent here will dramatically benefit your portrait work as well.

TAMING THE WIND
As much as I try to never take my camera out of Manual mode, an argument can be made that exposure modes are there for a reason.  This would be one of those.  When shooting outside, even the slightest breeze can give you fits.  Try switching you camera into shutter priority mode and dial in a shutter speed of 1/250 or faster.  The fast shutter speed should negate the effects of the breeze.  I’m not a huge fan of exposure modes and relinquishing control of my settings (one reason why we’re not talking about your camera’s macro setting in this article), but this is a simple and effective way to remove one of the obstacles in your path.

POST PROCESSING
My philosophy on editing these images is the same as my approach to portraits.  If you read my post on Basic Skin Smoothing in Photoshop, you know that when people look at my photos I want them to say, “That’s a beautiful ....not “Wow, nice editing.”  A slight levels adjustment and contrast bump should really be all they need.  Anything much stronger than that is going to come dangerously close to wiping out the texture and any of the natural feel to the overall image.

22 Photos of Brightly Colored Birds

Birds can come in many different colors; bright blues, greens, pinks, purples, and a lot more. When including them in your pictures you can add some rich hues that will make your photos pop. Here are 22 shots of vibrantly colored birds.

How to Take Better Photographs

Many people think they'll improve their photography by buying a spiffy new camera. The truth is, in photography, technique is much more important than equipment. And taking good pictures is something anyone can do with any camera, if you practice enough and avoid some common mistakes.

 Set the camera's resolution to take high quality photos at the highest resolution possible. Low-resolution images are more difficult to digitally alter later on; it also means that you can't crop as enthusiastically as you could with a higher-resolution version (and still end up with something printable). If you have a small memory card, get a bigger one; if you don't want to or can't afford to buy a new one, then use the "fine" quality setting, if your camera has one, with a smaller resolution.

Start off with setting your camera to one of its automatic modes, if you have a choice. Most useful is "Program" or "P" mode on digital SLRs. Ignore advice to the contrary which suggests that you operate your camera fully manually; the advances in the last fifty years in automatic focusing and metering have not happened for nothing. If your photos come out poorly focused or poorly exposed, then start operating certain functions manually.

 

ake your camera everywhere. When you have your camera with you all the time, you will start to see the world differently; you will look for and find opportunities to take great photographs. And, of course, you will end up taking more photographs; and the more you take, the better a photographer you will become. Furthermore, if you're taking photographs of your friends and family, they will get used to you having your camera with you all the time. Thus, they will feel less awkward or intimidated when you get your camera out; this will lead to more natural-looking, less "posed" photographs.

Get outside. Motivate yourself to get out and take photographs in natural light. Take several normal 'point and shoot' pictures to get a feel for the lighting at different times of the day and night. Go outside at all times of day, especially those times when anybody with any sense is sleeping, eating, or watching television; lighting at these times is often dramatic and unusual to many people precisely because they never get to see it!

 

Keep the lens clear of caps, thumbs, straps and other obstructions. It's basic, yes, but any of these (often unnoticed) obstructions can ruin a photograph completely. This is less of a problem with modern live-preview digital cameras, and even less of a problem with an SLR camera. But people still make these mistakes from time to time, especially when in a rush to take the image.

Set your white balance. Put simply, the human eye automatically compensates for different kinds of lighting; white looks white to us in almost any kind of lighting. A digital camera compensates for this by shifting the colors certain ways.

For example, under tungsten (incandescent) lighting, it will shift the colours towards blue to compensate for the redness of this kind of lighting. The white balance is one of the most critical, and most underused, settings on modern cameras. Learn how to set it, and what the various settings mean. If you're not under artificial light, the "Shade" (or "Cloudy") setting is a good bet in most circumstances; it makes for very warm-looking colors. If it comes out too red, it's very easy to correct it in software later on. "Auto", the default for most cameras, sometimes does a good job, but also sometimes results in colours which are a little too cold

 Set a slower ISO speed, if circumstances permit. This is less of an issue with digital SLR cameras, but especially important for point-and-shoot digital cameras (which, usually, have tiny sensors which are more prone to noise). A slower ISO speed (lower number) makes for less noisy photographs; however, it forces you to use slower shutter speeds as well, which restricts your ability to photograph moving subjects, for example. For still subjects in good light (or still subjects in low light, too, if you're using a tripod and remote release), use the very slowest ISO speed that you have.

 Compose your shot thoughtfully. Frame the photo in your mind before framing it in the viewfinder. Consider the following rules, but especially the last one:

• Use the Rule of Thirds, where the primary points of interest in your scene sits along "third" lines. Try not to let any horizon or other lines "cut the picture in half."
• Get rid of distracting backgrounds and clutter. If this means you and your friend have to move a little so that a tree does not appear to be growing out of her head, then do so. If glare is coming off the windows of the house across the street, change your angle a bit to avoid it. If you're taking vacation photographs, take a moment to get your family to put down all the junk they may be carrying around with them and to remove backpacks or hip packs as well. Keep that mess well out of the frame of the picture, and you will end up with much nicer, less cluttered photos. If you can blur the background in a portrait, then do so. And so on.

 Ignore the advice above. Regard the above as laws, which work much of the time but are always subject to judicious interpretation — and not as absolute rules. Too close an adherence to them will lead to boring photographs. For example, clutter and sharply focused backgrounds can add context, contrast and colour; perfect symmetry in a shot can be dramatic, and so on. Every rule can and should be broken for artistic effect, from time to time. This is how many stunning photographs are made.

 

Fill the frame with your subject. Don't be afraid to get closer to your subject. On the other hand, if you're using a digital camera with plenty of megapixels to spare, you can crop it later in software.

 Try an interesting angle. Instead of shooting the object straight on, try looking down to the object, or crouching and looking up. Pick an angle that shows maximum color and minimum shadow. To make things appear longer or taller, a low angle can help. If you want a bold photo, it is best to be even with the object. You may also want to make the object look smaller or make it look like you're hovering over; to get the effect you should put the camera above the object. An uncommon angle makes for a more interesting shot.

 

Focus. Poor focusing is one of the most common ways that photographs are ruined. Use the automatic focus of your camera, if you have it; usually, this is done by half-pressing the shutter button. Use the "macro" mode of your camera for very close-up shots. Don't focus manually unless your auto-focus is having issues; as with metering, automatic focus usually does a far better job of focusing than you can.

Keep still. A lot of people are surprised at how blurry their pictures come out when going for a close-up, or taking the shot from a distance. To minimize blurring: If you're using a full-sized camera with a zoom lens, hold the camera body (finger on the shutter button) with one hand, and steady the lens by cupping your other hand under it. Keep your elbows close to your body, and use this position to brace yourself firmly. If your camera or lens has image stabilisation features, use them (this is called IS on Canon gear, and VR, for Vibration Reduction, on Nikon equipment).

Consider using a tripod. If your hands are naturally shaky, or if you're using very large (and slow) telephoto lenses, or if you're trying to take photographs in low light, or if you need to take several identical shots in a row (such as with HDR photography), or if you're taking panoramic photos, then using a tripod is probably a good idea. For very long exposures (more than a second or so), a cable release (for older film cameras) or a remote control is a good idea; you can use the self-timer feature of your camera if you don't have one of these.

 Consider not using a tripod, especially if you don't already have one. A tripod infringes on your ability to move around, and to rapidly change the framing of your shot. It's also more weight to carry around, which is a disincentive to getting out and taking photographs in the first place. As a general rule, you only need a tripod if your shutter speed is equal to or slower than the reciprocal of your focal length.If you can avoid using a tripod by using faster ISO speeds (and, consequently, faster shutter speeds), or by using image stabilisation features of your camera, or by simply moving to somewhere with better lighting, then do that.

If you are in a situation where it would be nice to use a tripod, but you don't have a tripod at the time, try one or more of the following to reduce camera shake:

• Turn on image stabilization on your camera (only some digital cameras have this) or lens (generally only some expensive lenses have this).
• Zoom out (or substitute a wider lens) and get closer. This will de-magnify the effect of a small change in the direction of the camera, and generally increase your maximum aperture for a shorter exposure.
• Hold the camera at two points away from its center, such as the handle near the shutter button and the opposite corner, or toward the end of the lens. (Do not hold a delicate collapsible lens such as on a point-and-shoot, or obstruct something that the camera will try to move on its own such as a focusing ring, or obstruct the view from the front of the lens.) This will decrease the angle which the camera moves for a given distance your hands wobble.
• Squeeze the shutter slowly, steadily, and gently, and do not stop until momentarily after the picture has taken. Try putting your index finger over the top of the camera, and squeezing the shutter button with the second joint of the finger for a steadier motion (you're pushing on the top of the camera all along).
• Brace the camera against something (or your hand against something if you're concerned about scratching it), and/or brace your arms against your body or sit down and brace them against your knees.
• Prop the camera on something (perhaps its bag or its strap) and use the self-timer to avoid shake from pushing on the button if the thing it is propped on is soft. This often involves a small chance that the camera will fall over so check that it does not have far to fall, and generally avoid it with a very expensive camera or one with accessories such as a flash that could break or rip off parts of the camera. If you anticipate doing this much, you could bring along a beanbag, which would work well for it. Purpose-built "beanbags" are available, bags of dried beans are cheap and the contents can be eaten when they begin to wear through or get upgraded.

Relax when you push the shutter button. Also, try not to hold the camera up for too long; this will cause your hands and arms to be shakier. Practice bringing the camera up to your eye, focusing and metering, and taking the shot in one swift, smooth action.

 Avoid red eye. Red-eye is caused when your eyes dilate in lower lighting. When your pupils are big, the flash actually lights up the blood vessels on the back wall of your eyeball, which is why it looks red. If you must use a flash in poor light, try to get the person to not look directly at the camera, or consider using a "bounce flash". Aiming your flash above the heads of your subjects, especially if the walls surrounding are light, will keep red-eye out. If you don't have a separate flash gun which is adjustable in this way, use the red-eye reduction feature of your camera if available — it flashes a couple of times before opening the shutter, which causes your subject's pupils to contract, thus minimizing red-eye. Better yet, don't take photographs which require a flash to be used; find somewhere with better lighting.

 Use your flash judiciously, and don't use it when you don't have to. A flash in poor light can often cause ugly-looking reflections, or make the subject of your photo appear "washed out"; the latter is especially true of people photos. On the other hand, a flash is very useful for filling in shadows; to eliminate the "raccoon eye" effect in bright midday light, for example (if you have a flash sync speed fast enough). If you can avoid using a flash by going outside, or steadying the camera (allowing you to use a slower shutter speed without blur), or setting a faster ISO speed (allowing faster shutter speeds), then do that.

If you do not intend the flash to be the primary light source in the picture, set it up to give correct exposure at an aperture a stop or so wider than that which is otherwise correct and which you actually use for the exposure (which depends on the ambient light intensity and the shutter speed, which cannot be above the flash-sync speed). This can be done by choosing a specific stop with a manual or thyristor flash, or by using "flash exposure compensation" with a fancy modern camera.

 Go through your photos and look for the best ones. Look for what makes the best photos and continue using the methods that got the best shots. Don't be afraid to throw away or delete photos, either. Be brutal about it; if it doesn't strike you as a particularly pleasing shot, then ditch it. If you, like most people, are shooting on a digital camera, then it would not have cost you anything but your time. Before you delete them, remember you can learn a lot from your worst photos; discover why they don't look good, then don't do that.

Practice, practice, and practice. Take lots and lots of photos -- aim to fill your memory card, (or to use up as much film as you can afford to have developed, but don't mess with film until you can get decent pictures frequently with a simple digital camera: until then, you need to make many more glaring mistakes to learn from, and it's nice to make them for free and find out immediately, when you can figure out exactly what you did and why under the current circumstances it is wrong). The more pictures you take, the better you'll get, and the more you (and everyone) will like your pictures.

• Shoot from new or different angles, and find new subjects to take pictures of, and keep at it; you can make even the most boring, everyday thing look amazing if you're creative enough about photographing it.
• Get to know your camera's limitations, too; how well it performs in different kinds of lighting, how well auto-focus performs at various distances, how well it handles moving subjects, and so on.