Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014 announced

[Steve Kaluski]

Trust the link works.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/wpy/ga...014/index.html

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks for posting the link, Steve. There are some wonderful images here.

[Steve Kaluski]

No problem Ian, although personally I think it's a mixed bag, but all subjective , however it was sad to learn from Michael Nichols 'in conversation' that the lions in the image are no more.

[Morkel Erasmus]

No problem Ian, although personally I think it's a mixed bag, but all subjective , however it was sad to learn from Michael Nichols 'in conversation' that the lions in the image are no more.

Steve, it's a mixed bag every year!
Some great ones indeed! And some ones that are a bit "meh"...
My personal favourite? The whale sharks.

[Marina Scarr]

Overall, I found this year's picks to be thought-provoking, unique and overall impressive.

[arash_hazeghi]

Congrats to all the winners! It is a mixed bag, as for bird shots I like many of the shots that are posted by members in our own avian forum better, both from a technical and aesthetic point of view. Thanks for sharing the link Steve.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

A mixed bag indeed...thanks Steve for sharing the link.

[Steve Kaluski]

as for bird shots I like many of the shots that are posted by members in our own avian forum better, both from a technical and aesthetic point of view.

I agree Arash.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thanks for the link Steve!

[David Salem]

I made the finals on my first attempt this year, but I obviously didn't win.
I totally agree with Arash in that I like allot of shots posted here better than what the judges pick.
Techs are not as big of a deal as we make of them here and they are almost solely looking for unique content and scenes.
Thanks for the link Steve.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I think you have hit the nail very much on the head David, I think the competition is going very much down the line of looking for something different and sometimes at the expense of quality. I suppose the judges are looking for thought provoking stand out images as opposed to technically excellent ones, though of course there are plenty exhibiting quality and imagination.

[Andreas Liedmann]

First of all thank you Steve for the link.
After looking at the images several times i came to my personal conclusion that the choice of judges would not match my personal preferences at the first look ......... but i do find more and more that i like about them . Because i feel there is a lot of effort to see that the photographers invested .
For me i think most of the images do have a more "artistic " background rather than a "straight forward" nature photography attempt than posted here in BPN .
So " one" has to be open minded to "different photography POV " to like this kind of imagery ............ food for thought .
But as we can see what is posted here in BPN , including myself , it is very much straight forward ( Wildlife and Avian ) nature photography and i would expect that most of the images would have no chance in here seeing it by your comments .

Re Arash,David, Steve and others ...... all is so subjective regarding better images posted in here .From the technical POV you might be right , are you really right ? , who want to say what is right ? Who sets the norm ? For me there is no norm because photography is a kind of art !!!!!!
Looking at the forums (Avian and Wildlife) and taking a cross section what is posted there .......... it is almost always the same stuff that is presented , well many times .....there is not much food for thought .

For me i would like to try something like what is presented there, but i personally do not have this in my veins , so would make it less easy to achieve something like that .

Please do take this as my personal note , i do the same stuff as many of us do , and find it sometimes " boring" after looking at my results , because ending up with the "same classical image " .

Happy shooting to all of us , cheers Andreas