As I only started with serious photography in early 2010, and got inspired by Arthur Morris, I thought it would take a long time to develop an image portfolio that was somehow decent enough to compete in photo competitions. So, I really never thought I would sent in any images to the prestigious competitions such as Veolia's BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Nature's Best, or any competition for that matter. But, early this year I said to myself "why not", let's see what happens.

I entered in three competitions: Veolia's BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Nature's Best and the Birds-As-Art 1st International Bird photography competition. To my surprise I did really well in the Birds-As-Art 1st International Bird photography competition with a total of 8 images in the finals for the different categories. I had the pleasure of winning the "Pleasing Blurs" category with an image of the leg of a Great Blue Heron standing in the sand with the water flowing by. Later in the year I got a message from Nature's Best that two of my images had made the final round of judging. I was very pleased that one of the images of a Coastal Brown Bear became finalist and a "Highly Honored Winner" in the Animal Antics category.

Motivated by this years results I will enter again in the 2013 competitions, and see what happens. You never know.

Birds-As-Art 1st International Bird photography competition

This image was created in the morning at 9:55am at Blind Pass, Sanibel Island, Florida. A Great Blue Heron was standing near the shore line eagerly awaiting a fish being thrown in his direction by a local fisherman. After the usual head shots, my eye was directed to the waves flushing water up the beach and flowing past the GBH's leg. When it reached it highest point the water resided back to sea. I went to a slow shutter speed and started experimenting with different compositions to create a sharp image of the leg with the texture and the motion of the flowing water.