Wow, I’ve been very quiet on here for the last few months.
On the 30th of November I flew back to New Zealand for a 7 week holiday; mainly to catch up with family and friends; it had been 2 years since I was last back there. My younger sister had had a baby earlier in the year, so I had become an uncle for the first time and I was really looking forward to getting home and spending sometime with the little one.
My originally plan was to keep a weekly blog going of my trip but my 8 year old PC decided it didn’t really want to work properly anymore and I of course had made the decision to leave my MacBook Pro at home in Norway, so that plan went out the window.
So over the next couple of weeks I’ll share some of the images from my trip, week by week. Keep in mind it wasn’t a photographic trip, although I did get away on a few ‘missions’ with the camera.
So lets get started…
WEEK ONE
Click on the image to see a larger, sharper version.
My cute little niece Evie
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Posted February 14th, 2012. 1 comment
The results for the final round of the Villmarksliv Photo Competition are out and can be seen here – Resultater, omgang 10/2011. My five entries for this round can be seen at the bottom of this post, with the points awarded.
With this being the last round the total scores have also been published, including the extra points awarded to any gold image/s a competitor may have had during the year. Not surprisingly Kjell Germeten won the overall competition (Photographer of the Year) very comfortably with a margin of 245 points to Robin Jenssen in 2nd place.
Congratulation to Kjell Germeten and his outstanding images.
I finished 3rd overall, which I’m happy with, an improvement over last years 5th place and considering I had one image disallowed; somewhat harshly in my opinion considering what the Jury did allow. But at the end of the day its the Jury’s decision, whether I agree with it or not. I just hope that they are more consistent and/or clearer with Rule No.6 in the future because it can have a big impacted on the final results, as it did last year and this year for a number of competitors.
Unbelievable there was only 1 point separating 2nd to 3rd and 1 point separating 3rd to 4th place – wonder what the probability of that happening is??
So here is how the top ten finished; with their total points, number of counting images in parentheses and number of gold images.
Top Ten (Click here to see the full list - Villmarkslivs NM i Naturfoto 2011)
1 – Kjell Germeten – 1976 (50) – 10 golds
2 – Robin Jenssen – 1722 (50) – 1 gold
3 – Andy Trowbridge – 1721 (49) – 2 golds
4 – Ruben Johnsen – 1720 (50) – 4 golds
5 – Helge Helland – 1709 (50) – 2 golds
6 – Magnar Lien – 1696 (50) – 2 golds
7 – Vegard Lødøen – 1694 (49) – 1 gold
8 – Odd Johan Lundberg – 1689 (50) – 2 golds
9 – Torbjørn R Haagensen – 1656 (49) – 2 golds
10 – Tilman Wischuf – 1565 – (50)
Photo of the Year
We still don’t know who won the ‘Photo of the Year’. All 41 gold images have been marked and ranked but the actual results won’t be know for sometime apparently. However, Terje Sylte’s image ‘Wolf attack‘ must certainly be one of the favourites with a total score of 55.7, which is 0.7 points higher than the winning image from last years competition received. Since it is the only image he entered in the competition this year is rather easy to work out the final score of his gold image. My two gold images combined received a further 14 points, just how those points are split between the two images will be interesting to see, maybe one can make the top ten with a bit of luck.
Personal my three favourite gold images from this years competition are:
1. Kvinandhunn i tørrfuru – Bjørn Aksel Bjerke
2. Minimalistiske pingviner – Kjell Germeten
3. Rådyrbukk – Odd Chr. Knutsen
Interestingly they all come from the last round!!
Round 10 Entries
Falcon Calling - 38
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Posted November 26th, 2011. 2 comments
Finally here are some images from my second day at the Great Grey Owl nest, taken in early June.
I spent a total of about 9 hours at the nest; having a morning session (4.30am-8.30am) and an evening session (5pm-10pm). Most of this time was spent waiting for the brief periods of action when one of the parents brought food to the owlets. However, on this day the female did spend a large about of time on the nest with the owlets also, so I got plenty images of her with the chicks.
Female Great Grey Owl, having just returned to the nest - Canon 1Ds Mark II with 500mm f/4L IS. ISO 1600. 1/250 sec @ f/5.6. For some reason the time and date on my Canon 1Ds Mark II had reset itself to 1999 and I didn't notice this until after the trip, so not sure what time of the day I took this image.
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Finally Round 9 results are out for the Villmarksliv Nature Photography competition, check them out here – Round 9 Results, 2010.
My highest scoring image from Round 9. Young male (bull) European Moose (Alces alces) or European Elk feeding in forest clearing, Norway
So with just one round to go in this years competition, here are the unofficial totals of the top 8 photographers.
1. Ketil Knudsen – 1756 (12 golds)
2. Rolf Selvik – 1663 (5 golds)
3. Leif Rustand – 1608 (5 golds)
4. Andy Trowbridge – 1550 (2 golds)
5. Kjartan Trana – 1543 (3 golds)
6. Helge Helland – 1532 (3 golds)
7. Odd Johan Lundberg – 1501 (1 gold)
8. Rune Karlsen – 1483 (1 gold)
Remember these may not be correct!!
Not a great round for me, scoring just 159. It’s going to be tough to hold on to 4th spot, with both Kjartan Trana and Helge Helland catching me up and in Kjartan’s case, very quickly!!
Well have to pick my last 5 images this weekend, they are due on the 15th.
Final results I guess will be out sometime in December.
Posted November 12th, 2010. 1 comment
Round Three results of the Villmarksliv Nature Photo Competition came out yesterday and can been seen here – Round Three.
I was awarded my first gold of the competition with this image of a “Brown Trout Taking a Artificial Dry Fly”
Brown Trout Taking an Artificial Dry Fly. Taken with a 400mm lens on the Canon 10D. ISO 400. 1/250sec at f/5.6. A polarizing filter was used to reduce surface reflection from the water.
This image was taken a few years ago in New Zealand with a fishing mate of mine, Mike Watson. The plan for the day was to get an image like this and everything from weather, the trout and Mike’s fishing fell into place. We had an awesome day with Mike landing 6 trout between 3-4kg all taken on the dry fly. The trout pictured above was the largest of the day, weighing 4kg.
Not long after I got this image the wind picked making it hard to control the reflection on the waters surface but it didn’t matter, I had the image I wanted so I was able to take a turn with the fly rod and hooked a very large trout (between 4-5kg) late in the day which would have been a great way to finish but alias the small hook pulled out as I was bring the fish to the net…
Oh whoops back to results…along with the Gold, I was awarded 3 Silvers and 1 Bronze.
European Bull Moose, Norway. My second highest scoring image this Round - 43.
Check out the online gallery were you can see all the gold medal images along with some of the high scoring silver medal ones. Ketil Knudsen image Smålom (Black-throated Diver) is a must see!!
Capercaillie Update II
Spent two nights in the hide at the capercaillie lek last weekend. Activity was rather quiet, some males were still displaying and I witness a full on fight between two of them but no photo opportunities. Heading back up to the hide later today for 1-2 nights depending on the activity. I’m hopeful that the females will have arrived by now and activity will have picked up again…will update on my return.
