After many months of slackness and general lack of motivation with landscape photography I decided to make a couple of trips this weekend. One to Kimmeridge Bay for a sunset, and one to Portland for a sunrise. I also did a Winspit sunrise during the week that was quite interesting as i've finally found the right time of year where the bay catches the morning light!

I know, I know. I've photographed these places to death and frankly i'm bored to tears with them both. I really want to concentrate on inland photography and improve my landscape work dramatically because frankly, i'm crap at inland landscapes.

Part of the problem on the score is living in The New Forest. Non photographers say to me all the time, 'oh your so lucky to live in such a beautiful place for photography'. They clearly have no idea what so ever. The forest (as are most forests) is flat, boring and nothing but messy heath land and no real strong focal points. I have to say I have never seen a forest photograph anywhere that's made me go 'wow!' or provide any for of inspiration. The only shots it seems that are possible are the cliched silhouetted tree shots at sunrise / sunset. Anything else usually just turns out as a run of the mill postcard shot.

Anyway the two trips were pretty successfully. This morning was my Portland trip and I took my mate / photography' student Tim along with me. I got some ok shots which are in the gallery but I was running low on inspiration. The trip also cost me my HTC Touch HD mobile phone after I was knocked on my backside by a 15ft wave. Luckily I managed to spot the wave and start moving away from it with tripod / camera rig in hand before it hit me and bore me to the sharp jagged Portland rocks. The camera stay dry but i was soaked head to toe, and the end result was a flooded mobile which is now totally dead. Thankfully I have insurance on my mobile as I wouldn't be able to afford £500 for a replacement phone at the moment.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the new shots. I'm running low on confidence in my work recently and seem to turf out the same stuff over and over again. I have ruts like this.

I would usually take some solace in the fact that previous two years winners and commendations were, at least in my eyes, a bit poor for what you would expect from such a prestige competition. Unfortunately this year I can't say the same as I know someone who has had 5 shots commended / highly commended. Well done to Alex Nail.

I won't say i'm not disappointed or disheartened because it would be an outright lie. However there's still next year. And the year after. And 2012. And...

Hopefully one day i'll win a photographic competition but i'm not holding my breath at present! Been too slack lately and I just don't have the time and money to go to the places I really want to capture.

Ah well, life goes on.

I'm entering a few more competitions now I have some free time. I'm still awaiting results for the Take a View Landscape Photographer of the Year 2009 after I made the shortlist but I don't hold any hope of placing in that competition with the photo that was selected. I have just this second submitted a number of shots to the WildlifeExtra.com UK Wildlife Photography competition. Below are my entries.

Closing date is 31st of October 2009 so Hopefully I won't have such a long wait for the results on that one. It would be nice to win a competition for a change, but there's so many incredible photographers taking part in these things competition is very hard work and unless you have something truly special your chances are limited.

I just can't compete with full time professionals who have the money to travel and spend all week in a hide tracking things. I wish I could do that but I just can't afford it at the moment and I wouldn't know where to start either to be honest.

Anyway I shall keep you posted of any results I hear back from any of the competitions I do enter so watch this space!

However I have been out on three specific wildlife trips over the last two weeks. The subject? Deer, (yeah yeah I know I have tonnes of deer shots!). However this was more of a specific type. Despite living in the New Forest I have NEVER seen a red deer. Stag or otherwise and so I have paid two visits to Bushy Park in London to capture Red deer stags roaring as the rutting season begins. The first trip was a waste. I found the deer but due to culling, I couldn't get into the park until 8.30am which means I had to wait 2.5 hours for the gates to open by which time the light was too harsh to do any work. But at least I knew the red deer were roaring their heads off.

This morning I went back again and thankfully the culling doesn't take place on sundays so I was in place at 6.30am tracking the stags until the light levels came up enough to start shooting. Very eerie having the roaring going on all around you in the dark and seeing shadows running around between the trees.

I bagged quite a lot of shots i'm pleased with and I was going to upload them this evening around 5 minutes ago. However the .net runtimes on my web server seem to have either locked up or be disabled as no .net scripts are running. As my thumbnail generation system dynamically generates the thumbnails from the images I upload I can't put any new photos up until my web host has resolved this issue. A server restart should solve the problem unless they've done something stupid. Its always annoying being a professional web applications designer / developer and having at third party server go down as its totally out of your hands.

I could always manually make the thumbnails but i'm just too tired at this point in time. If the issue isn't resolved by end of work tomorrow I will manually process them and then bitch at my ISP. Anyway to tide you over i've included one of this mornings shots below. Enjoy.

Thanks to a trip out to Kimmeridge tonight with Jake, (although wasted in terms of photography as the weather turned out crap), I found out that he had received an email Take a View Landscape Photographer of the Year. I hadn't even realize that he had entered, and likewise he had no idea I had entered. Unfortunately, (and I do mean unfortunately as I am quite surprised), Jake's work didn't make the cut for the final judging round. I also learned that an online acquaintance of ours from DeviantArt, Alex Nail had had 5 of his fantastic images reach the the shortlist for final round of judging.

I was quite phased by this as I hadn't received anything either way and so when I got home I checked my spam folder. I found an email from them and thought ah, the rejection letter Jake mentioned. But no.

I am delighted to say that the email informed me that one or more of my images had reached the shortlist and final round of judgement! Unfortunately the email was received whilst I was away on holiday and my spam filters had moved it to deleted items as I never took any action. The email requested I login to the Landscape Photography of the Year 2009 website to find out which of my images had made it through and to submit the high resolution files. Unfortunately, trying to log into the website informed me that the competition is now closed.

I entered a severe state of panic and stress and instantly emailed the competition people. I was relieved when not 10 minutes later a response came through, (that's quick for 10pm on a sunday night!) informing me I could submit the hi-res files via email along with the additional information they required.

The image in question is 'Burning Away the Mist'

This is all fantastic news for me! I really wasn't expecting to get anywhere - especially with the shot that was selected. I don't think I will get much further however as i've seen some of the competition and frankly this image doesn't stand a chance. But to get this far is an honor. I will keep you all posted with information as and when I know.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Alex Nail on his fantastic work making it through, and my commiserations to my buddy Jake - I was truly shocked that some of his work never made it through.

Stay tuned.

I'm off on a cruise to Norway in a few weeks which will hopefully yield some opportunities, but because its a cruise i'm not holding my breath. Chances are I won't be able to get any sunrise or sunset shots as we'll be docking just as the sun comes up and departing just as its setting. Rubbish lol.

In other news - i've just this second submitted 15 shots to the BBC Landscape Photography of the Year 2009 competition. I'm not holding my breath but its the first competition i've entered that I have to PAY FOR. £25 for 15 shots isn't that bad though. Anyway wish me luck! I've submitted a variety of shots - all under the 'Your View' category.

Hopefully something will come of it but there are thousands of incredible landscape photographers in the UK so competition will be tight.

Stay tuned for more information soon - I promise!

Was it worth it - I thought so. I loved the shot despite its flaws. I'd heard quite promising things from other people but being over critical of my own work I kept seeing the flaws.

What am I talking about? My shot, 'A Matter of Territory' taken last September. Two little egrets stalking and fighting one another over fishing rights.

Why am I now talking about a shot that was taken nearly 8 months ago? The answer: The Sony World Photography Awards 2009.

I mentioned in a previous blog entry a few months ago that I had received a commendation in the Awards for one of my shots, but that I didn't know what shot had been commended. I've now been informed that 'A Matter of Territory' was the commended shot and has been published in the Sony World Photography Awards 2009 hardback Book.

I am so honored its not even real. Out of 35,000 photos, 600 photos (I think it was) were selected for commendation - the top 2%. Wow!

The book is only available directly from Sony WPA and orders are placed via email. I have no idea if the book will be available from Amazon or any bookstores yet but when I get my copy, (i'm ordered tonight - £50!) I'll post an update here on the photographers blog with details of the shot, where it is in the book and how big its been published etc.

Stay tuned...

On another note - I received the Holidays Guide 2009 from Archant Life this morning. I have three shots published in the publication, 2 for Dorset and one for Hampshire.The three shots are:

• Hatchets Pond Sunrise (Portrait Version)
• The Golden Door (Landscape version)
• Portland Bill Sunrise

The holiday guide is available online here. My photos are published on pages 30, 31 and 49. Enjoy!

On a related note to published works, I really need to organise my published works gallery a bit better. Its become outdated and the descriptions for images need updating to specify where the shots were published. I also think I need to re-organise my published works page now as its starting to drag on a bit.

Anyway hopefully I shall have some more shots up from this weekend coming, provided I can think of somewhere inspirational for sunrises and sunsets. I really need to get some heavy landscape work in as I haven't done any in land work for nearly a year and frankly i'm abysmal at it.

For more information of my published works, please visit my published works page.