The city of Columbia and a hometown artist have teamed up on a special project which will be a permanent part of the city’s new sportsplex.
New sculpture to be unveiled Thursday at Columbia’s ‘The Yards’
Wildlife Photographer of the Year: ghostly face or fish?
Pietro FormisWhat do you see when you look at this photo?
The image appears to show an enormous, scary face suddenly emerging from the ocean.
But what you’re actually looking at is a stargazer fish which has buried itself in the sandy floor of the Mediterranean.
The photo was taken by Pietro Formis from Italy and is among several to be highly commended in this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
Mr Formis explained that he doesn’t normally take photos for competitions. He submitted this image because he “liked it a lot” but didn’t expect to win any commendation.
“I’m super happy and I’m counting the days for the ceremony. I think that I will see most of my, I will say colleagues, but they are my heroes and the top of photography so I can’t describe how happy I am,” Mr Formis said.
The overall winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition will be announced at an awards ceremony on 10 October. The annual Natural History Museum exhibition showcasing 100 photographs chosen from the thousands that entered the competition will open the following Friday, 13 October, and then as usual, will then go on tour around the world.
Scroll down this page, you’ll be able to enjoy some of the other highly commended images in what is the 59th year of the contest.
Atlantic Stargazer fish, whose Latin name is Uranoscopus scaber, are so called because their eyes stick upwards. They are also predators, and in order to catch their prey they hide under sand with only their eyes and mouth visible – that’s what you can see in Mr Formis’ photo.
“To me it looks like a voodoo mask or a human face and those are species that I like most, the species that have a human-like face, with big eyes and big mouth. It’s a beautiful animal,” Mr Formis said.
Mr Formis explained that by using concentrated light from a flash, a slow shutter speed and deliberate movement he managed to photograph the stargazer almost illuminated in the clear blue water.
“For me it’s like a waterfall and then from behind you see this scary face. I took a few different images, but this one I prefer,” he said.
Underwater photography has almost become an “obsession” for Mr Formis since his father – also a photographer – took him diving and changed his life.
“Going in the water and taking pictures of all the beauty, it’s something that I feel privileged to do,” he said.
Coot on ice by Zhai Zeyu, China
Zhai Zeyu watched as coots attempted to cross a frozen pond in northeast China. After scrambling in the water for food, this coot eventually caught a loach.
Category – Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year, 10 Years and Under
Firebirds by Elza Friedländer, Germany
A controlled fire was lit on an area of Kenya’s Maasai Mara. Not long afterwards, hundreds of birds – particularly storks and kites – arrived at the scene. Elza noted that while most birds kept their distance, the storks moved close to the fire looking for easy prey.
Category – Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Birds
Forest rodeo by Atsuyuki Ohshima, Japan
Atsuyuki Ohshima caught this shot of a young female Yakushima macaque enjoying a ride on a deer’s back. On Yakushima Island, this is rare but not unheard of.
Category – Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Mammals
Mason bee at work by Solvin Zankl, Germany
A mason bee builds the roof of its nest while memorising landmarks around it so it was able to find the nest again. Solvin gradually moved his equipment towards the nest each time it flew away and after two hours, the bee was using his equipment as a landmark.
Category – Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Invertebrates
War cub by Michał Siarek, Poland
While documenting the evacuation of animals from war-torn Ukraine, Michał snapped the moment a team opened a crate to check on an evacuated tiger cub.
Category – Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Photojournalism
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The overall winner of the Sculpture in the Gaol Award went to artist Jason Russell with his striking work, ‘Taken from Country’.The sculpture
East Texas Oil Museum displays art from Nacogdoches native Charlotte Montgomery
KILGORE, Texas (KLTV) – Artwork from the great East Texas oil fields is on display at the East Texas Oil Museum.
The works were created by Nacogdoches native Charlotte Baker Montgomery, depicting the oil field community in Kilgore back in the boom days through her eyes.
Montgomery was an artist, author, poet, teacher, naturalist and humanitarian. She was born in Nacogdoches in 1910 and earned a master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1930. In 1950, she returned to Nacogdoches and became a full-time writer and illustrator.
“It really transcends, even if you are not from Kilgore or you are from Kilgore — just East Texas in general,” said Museum Director Olivia Moore. “They can speak to you for a lot of different reasons, whether it is the country escape, the derricks, the small town. Whatever it is, people can connect to it for a lot of different reasons.”
The exhibit is on loan from the Museum of East Texas in Lufkin. It will be on display at the East Texas Oil Museum through Oct. 28.
Copyright 2023 KLTV. All rights reserved.
The best decorative art is personal – The Chestnut Hill Local
Our clients sometimes look online for art. And that can be fine, but it can also mean they wind up with no connection to the story, or origins of the work.
Explore local art at the Vintage Home Market Art Expo
Busy Ogden corner gets splash of color with new sculpture
OGDEN — The southwest corner of 25th Street and Washington Boulevard has a new splash of color. A crew of workers on Wednesday installed a public art piece on the corner, “New Range,” one of the last steps in the upgrade of the high-traffic location, home to The Corner, the city-owned visitor’s center and snack […]
New photography business opening soon in Atrium
Sondra Eacker just moved to Havre and opened a family photography business. Eacker and her husband, Anthony, as well as their two children, Aubrey, 8, and Tanner, 6, sold their home in Kalispell and bought a home in Havre this summer.
“We absolutely love it here. We are thrilled to become members of the community… we were looking for a smaller slower pace for our family and Havre is perfect,” Eacker said, “My husband is a born-and-raised Montana boy who served his country doing two tours in Iraq during the years of 2001-2009.”
Eacker discovered a love for photography that started seven years ago with shooting models at various modeling workshops and functions for a few high-end Montana-based modeling agencies. Gradually, that turned into working with children and local families in outdoor sessions.
“My dream of opening a studio was put on hold during 2020 for obvious reasons, but I was able to find a very small studio space in 2021 where I made my full focus newborns and children and holiday mini sessions,” Eacker said, “I absolutely love to get creative, and I make lots of my own props and outfits at home. I have a huge passion for creating fun sessions for my clients. I am so very excited to be able to expand my service in my larger space.”
Eacker plans to continue utilizing the techniques she has so far, but also intends on adding a new style of photography.
“I will be doing a monthly theme change that I will be offering as a mini session,” Eacker said. “Also, I absolutely always want and strive to be affordable. It’s my opinion all families should be able to have professional keep sakes on their walls and shared via social media.”
As the school year begins, Eacker and her family settled into Havre before beginning her journey of opening the business.
“Our daughter is 8 years old and just entered second grade and she is really loving the new environment, it’s a bit different, wide open and you can see for miles and miles,” Eacker said, “She was born into the mountains of the Flathead Valley, but she really has taken to it here.”
“Our son, Tanner, is on the autism spectrum and is 6 years old. He is home-schooled and is just truly starting to bloom,” Eacker said. “For so many years, this was a boy who had spoken no more than three chosen words at a time, if he wanted. Now, he has quite the little vocabulary and even told a stranger ‘thanks’ for holding a door open for us the other day. She didn’t quite understand why I was so excited over something so small, but it was huge, really.”
“I am so very excited to get to work with the great people of Havre. I have already welcomed two brand-new teeny clients here and captured a bump for a mom to be,” Eacker said.
The studio is in Suite 404 in The Atrium. Eacker can be reached at 406-471-1596.
Images of ‘wonder and woe’ in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition
London
CNN
—
A home-making mason bee, a motherly possum’s midnight munchies and a macaque lying on a deer’s back are just some of highly commended images from this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
Other images include a bison kicking up a flurry of snow, a pair of storks against burning grasslands in Kenya and a distressed elephant following a collision with a train.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London, where a selection of 100 images will be exhibited after the winners are announced on October 10.
In its 59th year, the competition received 49,957 entries from photographers hailing from 95 countries, organizers said.
Entries were judged anonymously based on their originality, creativity and technical skill by an international panel of experts, organizers added.
Kathy Moran, chair of the judging panel, said they felt a “powerful tension between wonder and woe” when selecting the images this year.
“What most impressed the jury was the range of subjects, from absolute beauty, rarely seen behaviors and species to images that are stark reminders of what we are doing to the natural world,” she said in a press release.
Doug Gurr, director of the Natural History Museum, lauded the competition for showcasing “some of nature’s most wondrous sights whilst offering hope and achievable actions visitors can take to help protect the natural world.”
Photography is a “powerful catalyst for change” when faced with “urgent biodiversity and climate crises,” Gurr added in the release.
Images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition will be exhibited at the Natural History Museum from October 13. The exhibition will then go on a UK and international tour, organizers added.
Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.
Some of the Top Photos from the NHS Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023
The Natural History Museum (NHS) is previewing the best images it has received for its 59th annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
While the top 100 photos that will be featured in an exhibition in London on October 13 (including the winners for each category and the prestigious Grand Title and Young Grand Title Awards), the Natural History Museum is highlighting some of the top photos it received from the 49,957 total entries from 95 different countries.
While many more photos are to come, this set of preview images features an unusual interaction of a macaque jumping on a deer photographed by Atsuyuki Ohshima, the drama of a snow leopard hunting a Pallas’s cat witnessed by Donglin Zhou along with photographer Michał Siarek’s capture as a team opens a crate to check on a tiger cub evacuated from Ukraine. Jasper Doest shares the heart wrenching story of an elephant struck by a train in Gabon.
“What most impressed the jury was the range of subjects, from absolute beauty, rarely seen behaviors and species to images that are stark reminders of what we are doing to the natural world,” Kathy Moran, chair of the judging panel, says. “We felt a powerful tension between wonder and woe that we believe came together to create a thought-provoking collection of photographs.”
As is the case every year, after the flagship exhibition of the winners at the Natural History Museum in London concludes, the photos will embark on a tour across the United Kingdom and around the world with the goal of showcasing the best in wildlife photography to millions of people around the world. The Natural History Museum also says that it hopes it will call on them to act on behalf of the planet and help preserve its natural beauty.
Tickets for the London exhibition are available now.
Image credits: All photos are individually credited and provided courtesy of the Natural History Museum.
