DCM Photographer of the Year shortlists announced

The final shortlists from this year's Digital Camera Magazine's POTY competition have now been announced.
Unfortunately none of my images made the shortlists, although I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who showed their support by either voting or commenting on my images, it is much appreciated.
Anyhow, there are some great images in the shortlists and well worth a look if you get a spare five minutes.

DCM POTY shortlist galleries

BKSA Kiteival Finals

Well I went up to Blackpool on Saturday for the BKSA Kiteival Finals. I got up there about midday and had two hours of shooting in really good conditions. Great light from behind, it really was great. Unfortunately the wind completely died at about 2pm (it had been forecast as very light anyway). That pretty much put paid to the rest of the day. I hung around for another two hours in the vain hope that the conditions would pick up again, but it didn't happen.
Nonetheless I got some nice images from the two hours shooting, no kitesurfers, all landboarders and buggiers. These should be up on the site shortly.

When I finish this post I will be uploading the latest shoot with Johara, not the best lighting for this one, so the images weren't as striking as I had hoped, but they're not too bad all things considered.

Lastly, Rhosneigr Park Jam 2010 starts tomorrow and lasts all week. The forecast is for good westerlies and dry weather all week, so it should yield some great chances for some good photography. I'm going to try and get in the water with the kitesurfers and try the new Aquapac housing for my DSLR. I'm eager to see what results I can get from this kit.

Blackpool

I have been trying to organise a shoot with Johara recently but the wind is a bit on and off at the moment. We have a great idea for a portrait shoot that we are hopefully going to get a shot at (no pun intended) before she goes away for the winter.
Other than that I've been a little quiet of late. I do have a trip to Blackpool scheduled for this Saturday to photograph the BKSA Kiteival Finals. Hopefully get some nice shots to show you all.
I am still trying to finish an edit of a shoot with Johara from last week down at Aberffraw. What with work it is slow going, but hopefully it should be up in the next few days.

Unfortunately neither my Darwin's Chimp image or my damselfly image made it to the final shortlist for this year's DCM Photographer of the Year Competition. Guess I'll have to try even harder for next year's comp.

Gallery update

The images from the recent shoot with Johara Freedom Sykes-Davies are now up in the September 2010 gallery. Just follow the link to go to the relevant webpage.

Johara Freedom Sykes-Davies.

Extreme sports project is a go!

A bit of a teaser image from the first shoot in my new project. The project is looking at the extreme sports scene in and around Gwynedd, North Wales.

This is West Shore in Llandudno. The kitesurfer is Johara Sykes-Davies. I am lucky that this pro-kitesurfer (British Champion and 5th in the world in 2009) lives just down the road from me in Llandudno and she let me photograph her the other day. She was very friendly and was willing to chat and stuff.

There will be some more images to go up in the next few days, I got some real crackers, but just this little teaser for now.

New website

OK, so technically not a new website, but a revamped one with a brand new look and feel, so I'm calling it new. Head over to Jonathan Carre Photography to view the new look site. I would appreciate any feedback you may have about the site, good or bad, and you can leave any comments on this blog post.

Thanks in advance for any critique you may be able to offer.

A photographer's responsibility

I just saw an image that raises this interesting debate. It is a picture of an orangutan in a zoo, and the image is shot to emphasize the creature's 'sadness'. The image is Photo of the Day over at Photo Radar and you can see it by clicking here.
The image description states how the photographer visited the zoo and was aware of how sad the animals looked. Now 'looked' is the key word here. This was my response -

'This shot emphasises sadness, but is the subject actually sad? Photography is a powerful tool but do photographers always choose to portray the true message? This image is clearly a case of anthropomorphism. We assume the orangutan is sad because of its slumped stance, its downturned mouth, and the lack of 'nature' in it's enclosure. However, a downturned mouth in primates does not indicate sadness, it indicates relaxed facial muscles, which in turn indicates a happy, content primate. An agitated primate would be active, baring teeth. The slumped stance shows the same, relaxed muscles, showing a relaxed primate, rather than an active, agitated one. We assume that because the orangutan isn't in lush vegetation it must be somehow worse off than its wild counterparts, do you really think that the orangutan cares if he/she is swinging from real vines, or ropes and straps? Zoos work very hard to recreate an environment in which an animal can act as it would in the wild, which is why they come up with complex enrichment items, allowing animals to search and forage for there food, puzzles to keep them occupied and mentally stimulated, as well as a host of other things.
The problem with humans is that most of us see ourselves reflected in these animals, especially primates who are so similiar to us. Because of this we anthropomorphise and make assumptions about an animal's welfare/state of mind based on an equivalent human expression without fully understanding the animal itself. As I said before, this is a great photo, but it really calls into debate the issue about a photographers duty to represent the truth, rather than an askewed view of it, altered and affected by human perception. This image will no doubt be debated till the cows come home.'

I would love to hear everybody's thoughts on this. It could very well be an interesting debate.