www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Probably not for the photographic competitions Nick (although I am way out of my comfort zone here), but there are things to bear in mind with regard to the species album. A worthy competition winner of great technical and artistic merit may score nil poin for the species albums.

Felix.

padfield wrote:[
.....
Probably! I'm a very kind person!
Guy

Indeed; I will second that!
And I know that I am trying to look for something a bit different now when I press the shutter......
Sadly, not competent enough, yet, tho'

Felix wrote: A worthy competition winner of great technical and artistic merit may score nil poin for the species albums.
Felix.

...I must have plenty suitable for the species albums then....

Let's have a class for a butterfly + another insect in the same picture (both being in focus )

padfield wrote:Just for the record, I stopped rating the photo competitions (and therefore entering them, as its unfair to enter and not rate) precisely because all the best photographers were going for this blurry, pastel background effect, which I find actively unattractive - almost claustrophobic. No moan or rant or sour grapes or fisticuffs - just my subjective opinion. For me it's a shame that obviously great photographers, with great cameras, devote so much talent to isolating butterflies from their environments and producing what I find to be sterile pictures.

Guy

I wonder if we need a different kind of competition altogether - possibly in addition to the current comp which focuses (pun intended) on "good photography". I'd personally be much more interested in something like "interesting observations" when I don't always care about the quality of the photo. Or "butterflies in their natural habitat". Not sure how to really explain - I just feel that UKB is not just about photography (although people often associate the two) and we should be making more of the army of photographers and observers in our ranks. Thoughts?

Cheers,

- Pete

Can you upload video clips? Maybe directly to this site or via Youtube? That's got to be the easiest way of showing unusual behaviour/interactions. You could still incorporate the monthly topics just to keep folks on their toes. I expect a certain Mr Wetton may have something to say about the idea....

Gibster.

Pete Eeles wrote:I wonder if we need a different kind of competition altogether - possibly in addition to the current comp which focuses (pun intended) on "good photography". I'd personally be much more interested in something like "interesting observations" when I don't always care about the quality of the photo. Or "butterflies in their natural habitat".

That, surely Pete, should be the objective of the species albums? Therefore the 'competition' already exists. i.e. to take a photograph or series of photographs that shall merit inclusion in the species albums, rather than (to paraphrase myself) yet another beautifully composed photograph of an iris on a turd.
Felix.

Gibster wrote:Can you upload video clips? That's got to be the easiest way of showing behaviour/interactions. You could still incorporate the monthly topics just to keep folks on their toes. I expect a certain Mr Wetton may have something to say about the idea....

Gibster.

Yes - but not in the photo gallery at present. Only in the main forums.

Having said that, I do believe we'll start to see video becoming more prevalent and UKB will need to keep up

Time to order yet more server space

Cheers,

- Pete

Felix wrote:

Pete Eeles wrote:I wonder if we need a different kind of competition altogether - possibly in addition to the current comp which focuses (pun intended) on "good photography". I'd personally be much more interested in something like "interesting observations" when I don't always care about the quality of the photo. Or "butterflies in their natural habitat".

That, surely Pete, should be the objective of the species albums? Therefore the 'competition' already exists. i.e. to take a photograph or series of photographs that shall merit inclusion in the species albums, rather than (to paraphrase myself) yet another beautifully composed photograph of an iris on a turd.
Felix.

Completely agree (I was simply thinking of a way to encourage members to "look beyond the perfect photo" and make original observations!). WRT the species-specific albums ... what's missing right now is the "gatekeeping" of images that are added. Perhaps this is a job best-performed by a subgroup who are able to highlight the best contributions each month (and remove below-par images). Sounds like this would take some effort though

Cheers,

- Pete

I think that Felix might have hit the spot here.... Gawd,,, what am i saying? An iris on a turd did it for me. When you admire Dali this all becomes relevant.

I didn't mean to start a big thing...

Just to clarify what I did mean, before I shut up! My problem is that good photographers are producing what in my eyes are bad pictures because they seem to hold as an ideal something I find rather ugly - i.e., an isolated butterfly, perhaps on a flower, against a blurry pastel background.

It's a bit of a mystery to me why people think these are beautiful, but they obviously do and it's all a matter of taste. Some photographers on UK Butterflies do these pictures brilliantly and I appreciate their skill - it just makes rating impossible because I don't like the results.

Guy

Loads of posts have arrived since I started typing that, but I want to watch Law and Order so I'll just hit 'send'...

Maybe its a case of some people love to just look at butterflies, and others like photographing butterflies. I must admit that the image my eye sees, cries out to be captured. This however is intensely difficult, and observation seems to be enough for some. So be it.

Padfield wrote:I didn't mean to start a big thing...

You didn't. It was Celery..!

The entire issue boils down to butterfly photography as an art form against photographing butterflies as a method of capturing something of scientific value.

The two are not (in theory) mutually exclusive but are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Neither is worth less than the other, and I for one do look in wonder at the skill, technical, and artistic prowess of some of our foremost photographers. However, at the same time I concur with Guy in as much as from a scientific perspective the finest photographs often render nothing of any worth outside of being a very aesthetically pleasing image.

I am a huge art lover, so I appreciate both camps. Hence my feeling that there should be clear distinction about what is required for the photographic competitions and what the parameters are for a photograph to merit inclusion in the Species Albums. The winner of the photographic competition in any given month may actually be worthless in the Species Albums (and this is often the case irrespective of the obvious talent exhibited) and similarly the most valuable photograph in the Species Album may be an image that is poorly composed, taken using the meanest of equipment, badly executed and of no artistic merit.

I reiterate that this site should be able to accommodate both camps and satisfy both entirely legitimate butterfly related interests; there just needs to be a clear set of parameters.

Felix.

DITTO

Felix wrote:I reiterate that this site should be able to accommodate both camps and satisfy both entirely legitimate butterfly related interests; there just needs to be a clear set of parameters.

I'm not sure if a clear set of parameters for the photo comp (which started this discussion off) can ever be achieved when "beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder"; we all look for different things and rightly so.

Cheers,

- Pete

Pete Eeles wrote:I wonder if we need a different kind of competition altogether - possibly in addition to the current comp which focuses (pun intended) on "good photography". I'd personally be much more interested in something like "interesting observations" when I don't always care about the quality of the photo. Or "butterflies in their natural habitat". Not sure how to really explain - I just feel that UKB is not just about photography (although people often associate the two) and we should be making more of the army of photographers and observers in our ranks. Thoughts?

With the blogs, personal galleries and species pages, there are plenty of formats for people to upload their pictures to UKB. I hardly think it fair that just because a couple of people don't like the results of the competitions, that we should even start consider inventing a new format to accommodate lower quality images.

The monthly comps has been won by none DSLRs in the past, so its not all about who has the longest lens celery.

I personally have nothing but respect for the enthusiastic people armed with simplest of equipment, that happily , ( without complaint ) put their images up against experienced photographers with thousands of pounds worth of gear.

I don't like contemporary photography, but I would never consider going to a contemporary exhibition and moaning. Instead I except that we don't all like the same thing, and I except that perhaps it is because of my own artistic inadequacies, that I can not see what many others find appealing.

Regards Gruditch

Gruditch wrote:With the blogs, personal galleries and species pages, there are plenty of formats for people to upload their pictures to UKB. I hardly think it fair that just because a couple of people don't like the results of the competitions, that we should even start consider inventing a new format to accommodate lower quality images.

I agree - the current comp. format should stay as it is.

The reason I responded like I did to Guy's original post was simply to see if we need to inject more "variety" into the photos that get contributed - but I think that Felix and yourself have rightly pointed out that we already have several mechanisms for that. The intention was never to encourage poor photos, just more variety! And running a competition is just one way of providing that encouragement!

Cheers,

- Pete

I'm still not sure what people DO mean by all this
The mechanics of different lenses (or different focal lengths/settings on a compact) mean you get certain physical properties (angle of vision, d-o-f, light, etc) captured in the pictures you take. From some of the descriptions here of those "other" images, one would think that it were possible to combine the physical attributes of all lenses in one shot, some sort of Holy Grail of butterfly photography! Even the eye can not focus on everything in a panorama at once; but it does have a very-fast autofocus to build a picture in the mind of the whole scene.

Our technology can't capture that picture yet!

Gruditch wrote:Agreed about birds, fingers, and dog turds.

For one season we could do the family limited category's, Whites, Browns, Skippers, Fritillaries, Lycaenidae ( Blues, Coppers, Duke and Hairstreaks ) and Nymphalidae excluding Browns and Fritillaries, or is there a better way to sort 6 category's.

Regards Gruditch

I was thinking along the lines of having two or three families in one season, together with, for example, moths, up close, more than one etc and the following year have a different batch of families.

I agree that the format should stay as it is. I try hard to achieve the sort of images that Fishiee and others get. I like an unfocused background to hi-light the butterfly. I know that this is not always possible, especially with a compact, but as Pete said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Just my thoughts.

NickB wrote:I'm still not sure what people DO mean by all this
The mechanics of different lenses (or different focal lengths/settings on a compact) mean you get certain physical properties (angle of vision, d-o-f, light, etc) captured in the pictures you take. From some of the descriptions here of those "other" images, one would think that it were possible to combine the physical attributes of all lenses in one shot, some sort of Holy Grail of butterfly photography! Even the eye can not focus on everything in a panorama at once; but it does have a very-fast autofocus to build a picture in the mind of the whole scene.

Essentially Nick, the photo comp should stay as it is (i.e. a competition to find the highest quality wildlife photograph irrespective of equipment, budget etc.) but people looking to put stuff into the Species Albums should consider what the aims of the Species Albums are (i.e. not an art gallery but a scientific resource).

Felix.