We are happy to announce that the winner of the RSDS Photo Competition for November 2024 has been chosen. Congratulations to Ole Thielemann with his photo "Tunar Hunting".
Ole wins a free stay at the RSDS village of his choice. You can view the winning photo, and all the November participants here.
If you would like a chance to win, simply register on our website and upload your photos from our competition page. Each day we choose a 'photo of the day' from the selection of entries. Anyone can register on our website and vote on photos entered into the competition. At the end of the month our Photo Pro and photography workshop leader, Paul ‘Duxy’ Duxfield, looks at the votes and chooses a winner from the highest scoring photos. Full terms and conditions and prize details are available here.
Congratulations again to Ole, and good luck to all those participating in the coming months!
From Paul Duxfield, our competition judge:
The standard whilst always pretty high when it gets to the final judging seems to have kicked up a level.
And I’m once again presented with a difficult task to choose between at least 3 maybe more, for the top position this month. Maybe it’s the thought of the snow and cold weather across Europe that is prompting people to try even harder to win a week in the sun having fun with RSDS.
Ok I’ll start with the ones that didn't quite make it, but in any other month may have made the first place.
Excellent nudibranch portraits from Ruth Wanger and Jac Bastiaanssen super sharp, perfectly exposed and artfully composed, awesome shots.
Then great pics from Keith, Anders and Sandor, they just lacked that little bit of pizazz to take the top spot but to be honest I really couldn't separate them from one another competition wise.
A special mention must go to Bert Casters with a brave shot compositionally with a splash of yellow in a sea of blue but I felt that with the diver in the shot I would have composed it slightly differently or been super brave and excluded the diver in this case and made the Clownfish the main event front and centre.
Lovely angle on a shark from below against a blurred background by Omar Dessouky too, I’m assuming that the background was selected and blurred within Lightroom or Photoshop? As you’d normally not get a blurred background like this from a wideangle of view. Not that I think that’s a bad thing by the way, in this case I think it adds to the shot.
So I’m left with the really difficult task of separating three stunning shots from Ole Thielemann, Lewis Jefferies and Christian Horras.
I had to come back to these three more than once over the last day, and my choice would swing one way or the other, every time I gave them a fresh look. I’m not familiar with the three names either so I’m welcoming new folk to enter as you see you never know it’s always worth a go.
They’re all very different shots but they are all united in that they are very simple uncluttered compositions, beautifully exposed and executed displaying the skills of all three in different ways.
Ole’s shot appealed to me because it has a real sense of motion and is telling a story of the Trevally hunting with just the tiniest hint of motion blur to convey the action. Love it.
Lewis’s pic of what is a common subject at Marsa Shagra, a Dugong, is made whole with the addition of the three attendant Pilot Fish adding a splash of colour elevating above the mundane, not that you could ever criticise a Dugong of being mundane, forgive me Denis or Dyson or whatever your name is!
And finally Christian’s pic of a Ghost Pipefish doing what it does best and trying to hide, is as good a picture of one of these intensely frustrating creatures as it’s possible to get I think, and he’s framed it alongside the seagrass but not being occluded in any way, and got it looking eyes on to the camera, and given the overall exposure a very high key feel. Definitely not an easy shot to take I know I’ve spent hours trying to get shots like this and mostly failing.
I have to make a final decision though and other judges may have picked differently, so I can only apologise to the runners up as if I could these pictures more than other times I’ve been split, I’d have given joint first place.
My choice though is with……………Ole Thielemann and the dynamic shot of a Trevally hunting, only because it’s my kind of shot, and the sort of shot I personally like.
Excellent stuff folks keep up the good work, and if you’d like some extra help in person I’m conducting a workshop at Marsa Nakari this year again called Fotofest, limited numbers, and last year we had a blast so much so, that some folk rebooked on the spot. A bargain price and we’ll also have the wonderful Sarah O’Gorman along keeping me in order, sharing tips and finding the stuff that I can’t see!
