What do you think?

http://www.bbc.com …-england-bristol-29770415

I think it's rubbish. I have loads of out of focus shots like that. It just looks like a shot he might have accidently taken when he went over on his ankle.

I think it is a very artsy shot. I love it when mine come out like that. Which is very rare unfortunately...or is that fortunately....

I agree with Fast Guy! Photos like this are just garbage. People should not be rewarded or recognized for their poor photography techniques. It looks as if he was bumped horribly as he took the shot or the tripod fell mid shot. This is not art.

WTF!?!?! that is complete *insert rude word here* !!!!

Does that mean that all the blurry shots i take when i don't focus correctly or have the wrong shutter speeds could be award winning?

Damn i'd better start posting more crap and i'll be a millionaire soon!

What a load of horse crap. Difficult? A middle school kid with no photo knowledge could've taken an image identical to this. And it would've been more "difficult" to have actually gotten the herd in focus and sharp.

I laugh at this. When I see an image like that appear on my camera, I think the exact opposite and send it to the trash can immediately. It amazes me at what some people think is art and a good shot. Smdh.

Reading the comments before viewing the pic, I was ready to toss in my comment that sometimes when you jump out of the box you land in a pile of poo.

But I like it! Pleasing image IMO

kbColorado wrote in post #17237701
Reading the comments before viewing the pic, I was ready to toss in my comment that sometimes when you jump out of the box you land in a pile of poo.

But I like it! Pleasing image IMO

I guess everyone has their own taste. I'd like to hear some reasoning as to why you like the shot though. What makes this more than pointing the camera out of a moving vehicle?

I think I need to submit some wildlife photos in this contest. I don't SHOOT wildlife photos but evidently that doesn't matter; as long as you can't tell what the heck was photographed, it can be a winner. Seriously, the guy clearly has talent because some of his other pictures are really good, but his award winning picture is the same type of art that leaves me scratching my head wondering, "How in the WORLD is this considered "art" and not just garbage?".

It's terrible!!

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thought this was straight trash.

One of my favourite photos is technically crap! When I look at it, it gives me the feeling I was trying to capture, so job done for me. No one on the forums liked it, but that's ok.
This shot doesn't resonate with me, but it doesn't have to. Art is subjective... What I don't understand is, why is a European wildlife contest full of African wildlife!?!

I think that is a tremendous photo, and obviously represents the kind of result that Neil was hoping for when he planned to pan with a slow shutter speed. This image - this type of image - inspires me to be more alert and more watchful for panning opportunities whilst afield.

I have long envisioned making this type of image with my favorite subject, Whitetail Deer. However, after many years of photographing Whitetails, I have never even come close to getting something as wonderful as this image. But I'll keep trying, and someday perhaps I'll "capture my vision" the way Mr. Aldridge did.

I am surprised by all of the negative comments I see here. This makes me wonder if those making the comments have a long personal history of studying various types of fine art. If not, I can understand why they might feel the way they do. But if someone has studied fine art for most of their lives, they would immediately see this image as a success . . . no?

I sure like it better than yet an other picture of some animal frozen in time. Art is not rational, you ether like it or don't, simple as that. There are hundreds of Picassos I'd never want in my house, yet they hang in galleries and museums all over the world. Just not my thing.
But this photo is very nice to me, I try to capture movement like that as well. it's not as easy as it might look.
And others want to be able to count the eyelashes at 100x magnification, something I really don't care about. Luckily everybody has their own taste or we'd all create exactly the same stuff, how boring would that be

JM Photos wrote in post #17237646
And it would've been more "difficult" to have actually gotten the herd in focus and sharp.

You weren't there when Neil shot this, so how do you know this to be true? I have photographed quite a few big game animals on the run. From my own personal experience, creating this type of image has been quite a bit more difficult than creating the types of images where the animals are sharply rendered with a lot of fine detail resolved. Granted, capturing sharp, perfectly focused images of running animals is very difficult . . . but capturing an image like this is even more difficult. At least it has been for me. And that is based on hundreds of instances of actual, personal, in-the-field attempts at both types of images. What is your statement based on?

JM Photos wrote in post #17237897
I'd like to hear some reasoning as to why you like the shot though.

There are several aspects to this image that cause me to really like it.

I absolutely love the repetition of form. The two antelopes are on the same exact horizontal axis, appear at the same size in the frame, are each just exactly as "soft" as the other, and even have their legs in almost the same position, as their strides were almost perfectly synchronized. They are very close to each other, with no expanse of background between them in the frame . . . and yet they are not overlapping each other; each is distinct in the composition.

I like the way that the background reinforces the concept of motion, created by panning, which caused the directional streaking of the BG. What helps the background to achieve this goal is the fact that it is an even background. If there was variation or contrast in the background vegetation, this effect would not have been able to be captured as effectively as it was. That may be one reason that Neil needed to get low - perhaps from a higher angle the BG would have shown unwanted contrast. Shooting from a lower position usually helps to put more distance between the subject and the background, which in turn helps one to even out the background more completely.

I love the colors of the Blesbok, and the contrast between those colors. A medium-toned ruddy brown, clean, bright white, and deep black. What a glorious contrast! And it is not just the fact that there is contrast - it is the fact that the contrast is spread throughout the length of the antelope's coat. The bright white and deep blacks appear, literally, from the tips of their noses to the tips of their tails. Unfortunately, this degree of coat contrast is not shared by any of our North American big game animals.

I like the degree to which the subjects are blurred. If they were any more blurry, we would start to lose the distinct contrast that I like so much. If they were any sharper, we would start to lose the dreaminess of the image, and it would start to look like . . . well, Blesboks, instead of looking like an impression of Blesboks. For this type of image, I want the impression, not the "real thing". Get too close to "reality", and then it wouldn't be an impressionistic image anymore.

.

JM Photos wrote in post #17237897
What makes this more than pointing the camera out of a moving vehicle?

Do you think there were any other pair of antelope in that herd that were so perfectly aligned to one another, relative to the photographer's POV?

Furthermore, do you think that these two individuals were so aligned for more than a fleeting second? There was just one fraction of a second in which Neil could have gotten two antelopes with matching strides so close to one another, yet not overlapping. And at that exact instant, he did exactly what had to be done in order to make the capture.

But the photographer's effort involved far more than just having his camera pointed in precisely the right direction, from precisely the right POV . . . it was what he was doing for several seconds before the shot that made the shot so awesome . . . he had to pan smoothly for several seconds (all the while keeping those bounding, leaping beasts centered in the frame) in order to render the background the way he did, with the motion-induced panning streaks. And of course, he knew to get out of the vehicle for a lower POV, and chose to do so (even though it cost him a broken ankle).

.