Top 10 Images of 2014

It's new year's eve and since I'm not down the pub it's probably as good a time as any to briefly summarise my photographic year.

I've had a number of images and articles published this year but there are a few that stand out to me for various reasons. I'm always pleased to see my images published in BBC Wildlife magazine and so  I was particularly proud to have 2 of my images published as double page spreads (here and here). I also had a short article and one or two other images published in BBC Wildlife. I enjoyed writing a couple of articles for Wild Planet Photo Magazine including a review of the Olympus OM-D E-M1 camera (more on this below). I was also pleased to have one of my images included in the national Wildlife Trusts 2015 calendar, a charity I'm always keen to support. Other images and articles appeared in the press, photography magazines and books.

I entered two wildlife photography competitions this year (the British Wildlife Photography Awards and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year) but despite having images shortlisted in both competitions I failed to make it amongst the prize winners. There's always next year....

In terms of the images I have taken this year, I would never have predicted that so many would have been taken by a camera that is not a DSLR. But having tested the Olympus OM-D E-M1 (a mirrorless 'compact system camera' rather than a DSLR) for Wild Planet Photo magazine I realised what a capable and enjoyable camera it is for macro portraits (see here for my review of this camera). As a result, once the test camera was returned I decided to purchase one and I ended up taking a significant proportion of this year's images with it.

I have taken a variety of styles of close-up images this year including traditional macro portraits, high magnification images and wide angle 'macro' images. However, I confess to having taken very few Meet Your Neighbours 'outdoor studio' images, for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. Maybe that will change next year.

In recent years I have listed my 10 favourite images taken each year (see 2013, 2012 and 2011) so without further ado here are my favourites for 2014. A caveat that I like to make each year is that my reasons for choosing these images are varied and highly subjective. As a result, this is not intended to be a list of the images that I think other people will like most...

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I had never previously seen a 22 Spot Ladybird in my garden and so I was particularly pleased to find this mating pair back in June.

I have a bit of a thing for Marbled White butterflies and so I enjoyed taking this habitat image of one in golden early morning light.

A common butterfly that I have always struggled to photograph is the Orange Tip. I was therefore pleased to photograph this one on Cuckoo Flower.

I know this one isn't everyone's cup of tea but it's a mating ball of toads with one female and 3 males. I like how peaceful they look even though mating balls like this can often result in the death of the female.

Another butterfly I enjoy photographing is the Green Hairstreak. Here's a very green image of one.

The Scorpion Fly is a notoriously difficult insect to photograph as they rarely sit still for more than a second or two. I was therefore pleased when this male specimen posed for me for just long enough to take this image.

This dragonfly in flight is not a very original image but it was my first attempt at photographing these in flight for several years.

I really enjoy showing subjects within their environment and like the light and woodland setting of this group of fungi.

Another Marbled White image...

A habitat image of a mating pair of blue-tailed damselflies.

number 11 in my top 10 images (!), a small jumping spider on a dandelion, just because I like the composition.

and finally a Fly Agaric in habitat. These are one of our most photogenic fungi species and I was pleased to capture this specimen in nice light and showing its Birch habitat.

So there you have it. I couldn't decide on 10 images and so these are actually my 12 favourite images of the year. I'm already looking forward to 2015...

I'd like to wish all readers of this blog a very happy new year!

Marbled White Butterflies Part 2

Summer already seems like a distant memory so the second part of my two-part Marbled White post is long overdue. Back in October I posted part 1 here.

As I mentioned in part 1, in July I made 2 visits to Ryton Woods Meadows to photograph the Marbled White butterflies. The first visit provided lovely early morning light but the temperature rose so quickly that the butterflies were unapproachable by around 6:45 AM. The second visit was on a much cooler, grey day which resulted in more co-operative butterflies but less attractive light.

The following are probably the best images from the session.

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and finally, another image from the first, sunny, session that I don't think I'd processed when I posted part 1. It's a Burnet Moth next to the cocoon from which it had just emerged.

Wideangle Fungi

After a very poor start to this year's fungi season due to the dry weather, things did pick up a little in late October and early November. I therefore had a few photographic sessions in some local woodland taking a mix of wideangle and more traditional macro style images.

Most images will feature in future blog posts but here's one image that I've already processed. It was taken with my Tokina 35mm macro lens (one of my favourite lenses) early on a misty morning earlier this month. If I'm honest, it's an image that I'm really quite pleased with. I tend to be my own harshest critic at times but there's something about this image that I do like. I don't necessarily expect the fact that I like it to mean that others will too - I often find that my photographic tastes don't coincide with the tastes of others! - but the fact that I like it is enough for me. It's a slippery slope taking photos with other people's preferences in mind.

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Dragonflies in Flight

A trip to a local nature reserve in September gave me an opportunity to do something that I hadn't tried for several years; to photograph dragonflies in flight. It was a still, sunny morning with a hint of Autumn in the air and I noticed several Migrant Hawkers patrolling the reed beds at the margins of a small lake. Every now and then they would hover for a few seconds as they surveyed their habitat. It's this characteristic of Migrant Hawkers that generally makes them the easiest dragonfly to photograph in flight.

My weapon of choice was to be my 400mm lens with a couple of extension tubes fitted to allow closer focus. Dragonflies in flight are not an easy subject to photograph. They move quickly and often only hover for a second or two. So often I found I was just getting the point of focus on the dragonfly and about to squeeze the shutter when they disappeared from my viewfinder. Nevertheless, over the space of approximately an hour I managed quite a few shots where the subject was in focus and sufficiently large in the frame.

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It's worth noting that I returned to the site a few days later with a view to having another go photographing the dragonflies. However, on this occasion they didn't co-operate at all. There only seemed to be 1 or 2 individuals around, they seemed to be patrolling a much larger area (regularly disappearing from view for minutes at a time) and they weren't hovering at all. The conditions were broadly similar to those on the first occasion so it's not clear why the dragonflies were behaving so differently. As is so often the case with wildlife photography you do need a bit of luck for all of the elements to come together.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014

The winning entries in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014 were announced last night at a star-studded event at the Natural History Museum attended by Sir David Attenborough and the Duchess of Cambridge no less(!). The overall winning image was 'The Last Great Picture' by Michael 'Nick' Nichols, below. It features a pride of lions, mostly sleeping, taken with an infra-red camera. I'll comment on this image shortly. The winning images can be found here.

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The Last Great Picture by Michael 'Nick' Nichols.

This time last year I wrote a blog post about the 2013 competition (here) and started a Facebook discussion (here), both of which seemed to resonate with many photographers. For those who don't want to wade though either discussion, my main grievances were the dominance of 'flagship' species (lions, tigers, polar bears, penguins etc) and the almost complete absence of insects and other invertebrates in both 2013 and 2012 competitions. Other photographers made similar points.  Whether as a direct result of these public discussions or not, two new categories were added to the 2014 competition - Amphibians and Reptiles, and Invertebrates.

So how have these changes affected the images in this year's competition? Well, I'm pleased to see that the presence of 'flagship' species amongst the 2014 winning images is notably reduced. The various category winners feature a mouse, herons, click beetle larvae, a green vine snake and so on and the competition is better for it in my opinion. Quite simply the winning images are more representative of the world's various animal taxa than they were in previous years. That has to be a good thing.

So what about the images themselves? I must admit I was a little underwhelmed at first. I think the overall winning image is 'nice', but that's about it. It's a pleasant image. It doesn't grab me and I find the wonky horizon somewhat distracting (not to mention surprising!). However, having dug a little deeper into the winning images I've found there are quite a few that I really do like. Here are a selection:

Glimpse of the Underworld by Christian Vizl

Little Squid by Fabien Michenet

I think the Little Squid image above is absolutely stunning. This image must have been very technically demanding but is creative, other-worldly and highly original.

Winter Hang-Out by Lukasz Bozycki

 The Great Arrival by Sergio Pucci

Night of the Deadly Lights by Ary Bassous 

Sailing By by Matthew Smith

The Enchanted Woodland by David Lloyd

and there are others too. All of these images are interesting, original and attractive. 

Inevitably there are other images that I'm less keen on and one or two that are rather formulaic. I won't single any out but I sometimes wonder whether the judges are as familiar with previous entries to this competition as I am :) 

So overall I think this year has been an improvement on last year's competition. The winning images are more varied in terms of subject matter and include a number that I consider to be of very high quality. Those positives are inevitably tempered slightly by the overall winning image which strikes me as a rather safe and conservative choice.

Finally, a couple of disclaimers:

Disclaimer 1: The above comments obviously represent my entirely subjective views. I simply speak as someone who has followed the WPOTY for many years and who holds the competition in great affection.

Disclaimer 2: By way of transparency, I should point out that I did enter this year's competition but, despite making the final round, I didn't make it into the winning images.

Marbled White Butterflies Part 1

Each summer I like to pay a visit to Ryton Wood Meadows, a Butterfly Conservation reserve that is especially good for Marbled White butterflies (note that the site is for members only).  I always enjoy photographing Marbled Whites and their absence from sites closer to home necessitates a one hour drive. This means an early start is required in order to arrive on site before the butterflies have warmed up too much.

This year I actually made 2 visits as the first, in early July, was on a particularly warm, sunny day and the butterflies were on the wing within around 45 minutes of my 6:00 AM arrival. On the plus side, the early morning sunshine provided very attractive light conditions during that short period. The second visit in mid July was on a much cooler, grey day. This meant more co-operative butterflies but less attractive light. Nothing's ever simple is it?!

The following were my favourite images from the first visit. The images from the second visit will form a later blog post.

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The first 4 images were taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M1 with Olympus 60mm macro lens:

This final image was taken with a Canon 60D and Tokina 35mm macro lens:

Wildlife Trusts Calendar 2015

I'm very pleased to have an image of mine included in the national Wildlife Trusts calendar 2015. My image is of a striking male Banded Demoiselle damselfly and represents the month of June.

The calendar features a selection of excellent images and is printed to a very high standard. It would make a great present for any wildlife lover and helps out a great cause too.

It can be purchased from Amazon or from Calendar Club.