Deciding what image to place in my final 75 image portfolio from the nearly 17000 photos I took during the month is a daunting task. I had quite a bit of help in deciding but in the end it was my choice. I tried to capture some images that were a different than what other contestants may enter. I decided to take a big risk on a few of my entries and hoped for the best. You really never know how the judges will react to these type of images., With several photos I was burned,but on a few others I was rewarded.
This image was entered in the Plants and Landscapes Catagory. Faced with the ever present winds of South Texas I decided to use the wind rather than fight it. I took a number of exposures at different shutter speeds to find a result I thought pleasing. Some were quite abstract other didn't really show the wind motion enough. This image I thought had a nice balance. Nearly everyone I showed this to really liked it and a few said they would love a print of this on their wall. The 3 judges for the ICF Contest thought different scoring this image very low. In fact it was the lowest scoring photo of my entire portfolio.
This is another image from the plants and landscape catagory. I thought including a little wildlife in the scenic may add some visual interest. Here I was looking for a strong graphic image. Again I was not rewarded for this entry.
I had only one chance to photograph a bobcat during the month. The bobcat made a kill in front of my blind that I had setup on a water drip to photograph birds. The bobcat never came out from the high grass so I never was able to get a real clear look at him. The bobcat has it's prey (barely visible) in it's mouth. I debated long and hard on this one and finally decided to include the image in my final portfolio not expecting much. Much to my suprise the judges liked the photo and it was scored as one the the top 20 in the wildlife catagory earning me an extra $500.
I had about a 2 minute window of opportunity to photograph Javelina during the contest. The animals were on the move and I was able to get ahead of them, find a clearing, and fire away as the herd came through. I was just a bit to close with my 300mm and would have liked more room in front the mother. I wasn't going to enter the image in but everyone I showed it to loved the baby jumping. They really didn't seem to care about the poor placement of the mother in the frame. I went ahead and submitted the photo and again was rewarded with this image being amongst the top 20 images in the Wildlife Catagory.
