I’ve just heard about the British weather photographer of the year competition and decided to enter myself. This provided me with a nice opportunity to look back through my photographs of the summer on Flickr to see if I could find something appropriate. I browsed through my pictures of rain and a few summer seaside scenes and then lost a bit of confidence. I have pictures of light, pictures of scenes affected by weather but nothing I could really call specifically “weather photography”. My thoughts turned to extreme weather – tornadoes, floods, ice storms etc but I don’t seem to have witnessed many of those recently, not with a handy camera ready anyway. Then it occurred to me I was being far too literal in my interpretation of the competition requirements:
…to find the best amateur photographer of the British elements. Judged by top professionals and experts in the field of photography and weather, 12 finalists will be chosen for the flair, technique and originality they use in capturing British weather.
I’ve got it down to two photographs that might fit the bill here, the first is a picture of sunlight shining through gaps in the clouds over the sea near the Worms Head, Gower, South Wales. If you click through and look at the large or original sized photo I think it looks quite stunning, and it was quite an unusual weather pattern to observe for me, even if it might happen in such places more regularly than I imagine.
The second picture I’m considering is one of the dried up lake bed during an extended period of drought.
The patterns made by the drying out process in the mud make interesting shapes, and this one looks a bit like a map of Australia, a country where drought is a more familiar problem than southern Britain.
Whichever I decide, (suggestions?) or maybe I can submit both, you can have a chance to vote for me if you feel like it there, but probably more likely and preferable anyway, would be to enter one of your own weather photographs in which case do please leave your link in the comments below.
Andy Roberts is a writer who initiated DARnet. Contact me on aroberts@gmail.com or @aroberts on twitter
I think the Worms Head is a gorgeous photo but the drought one stands a better chance. It’s a bit more original and there’s lots of lovely shots of light on the sea there already.
I really love the first picture.
I like the Worms Head one. I think it’s beautiful. But you can submit as many as you want in any case.
I tried submitting one myself, and tried to upload it many times, yet no matter how few Mb I made it, their software told me that it exceeded the maximum height & width of the competition – but the competition doesn’t state a max height or width – it just states a max Mb of 2Mb. I get the same message even at 1.3Mb, & there seems to be no place to send them a question to ask about it.
Good luck Andy!
Isha, I had a slight problem uploading too. The first one went up fine, but the second came up with the same message as yours, something about dimensions being too large. Both photos were downloaded from my Flickr stream at Original size. So I tried again, same thing. Then I tried uploading the “Large” size, which is slightly smaller and it worked. The oirginal was well within the 2Mb limit and the dimensions were exactly the same as the one that worked, so it’s definitely a misleading error message. I suspect it should really say something like “server busy, please try again later”. Who knows. What do you do first when something doesn’t work on the internet?
I got it to work in the end, too – but what a time waste! I kept on reducing the larger of the 2 dimensions & their software worked when I got it below 2000 pixels height/width.
I uploaded 4 or 5 other pix too, thinking that it was best done while I remembered the sizing; then regretted it & wished I’d spread them out over several weeks because they have a weekly public vote on which photo’s the best one submitted of the week (if I remember rightly it’s £100 weekly prize).
Andy,
I like the seascape photo the best – very nice lighting effect. It’s subtle-dramatic in my opinion. I suppose a sinking ship in the shot would have given the photo more drama but I like the tranquility with just a hint of impending doom (the calm before the storm?) from the colour of the sky and the water.
Good luck!
regards,
Brad
Thanks for the vivid description Brad, I’m convinced.