Our Fall Bird Photography Contest’s Halloween theme brought in a wide variety of images. Xwinger and I reviewed them all and discussed whether a “themed” contest was in the spirt of GreatBirdPics. It allowed for a very interesting variety of pics and left it up to the imagination of the photographer to interpret how their shot correlated to the theme. What do you think? Would you like to see more “theme” photo contests in the future?
Twenty-eight pics were submitted and we painstakingly narrowed them down to eight. However, selecting one as the overall winner was nearly impossible. We bounced back and forth between two images as our ultimate winner and finally decided to split the prize money between the two. Congratulations to Birder2011 and Rebecca Bowater for their winning entries! Each will receive $50 for their photograph.
Birder2011’s shot of a Crow sitting atop a tombstone certainly met our definition of Halloween! The black Crow has traditionally been associated with evil and darkness. As we reviewed this image we noted that the focus on the crow was a bit soft (the camera appears to have found its focus on the tombstone). Xwinger reminded me that this site seeks GreatBirdPics and this one was off a smidge. Otherwise a great composition!
We were also drawn to Rebecca Bowater’s closeup of a ghoulish-looking Swamp Harrier. The face reminded us of a scary Halloween mask. Great shot and it met our theme nicely.
Tomorrow you can view the six Honorable Mention photographs, many of which were very creative in applying the Halloween theme to their shots. Thanks to all who entered! Next contest in December – I’m always looking for contest ideas so send them my way.
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