Past Judges Tips: Chris Bray

What makes a winning nature or bird photograph for you?

Birds are excellent photography subjects: not only can they be found almost everywhere in a plethora of shapes, sizes, colours and personalities, but there is something inherently intriguing and delightful about their predominantly aerial lifestyle which we stubbornly-earthbound humans can only dream of. It’s not just the ability for most to take to the skies so gracefully that enthrals us, but also their fragility, their speed, power, navigational abilities, the myriad environments and threats they face, their song, colour, courage, behaviour and so much more. It’s these captivating qualities that combine to form the archetypal avian image in our minds. Capturing the essence of any of these qualities into a single, striking frame is the perpetual challenge for bird photographers.

It’s easier said than done however. Surely one of the few things more abundant than birds are terrible photos of birds. They are challenging subjects – it’s often hard to get close enough, hard to expose correctly, hard to get an non-obstructing foreground or clean background, hard to keep in focus, to get a fast enough shutter speed, good lighting, good orientation and so on - and even if you manage to tick all those boxes, you can still end up with a technically perfect yet nevertheless quite boring photo.

For me, a winning bird photo not only ticks all those technical boxes, but importantly also captures one of those evocative qualities that embody the avian spirit, freezing that fleeting moment so that it can be appreciated and enjoyed in all its splendour and glory.

What key advice can you offer to entrants?

Just remember that in large competitions like this with thousands of images, two or three seconds is all you get for your photo to survive the first round of judging – and most don’t even last that long. It’s brutal, but that’s how it is. So pick your photos with that in mind: it has got to stand out. It’s more important for your photo to be different or interesting rather than perfect, else it won’t even progress to the second round where the technical details are assessed and any shortcomings are weighed against the overall impact of the image. For example, two birds fighting over a twig is far more interesting than two birds perched on a twig!