“Fingertips” by Kate Burgess. Winner, Birds in Flight.
“Being able to capture both the ‘fingertips’ of the feathers in flight and the cockatoo’s head and feet in the background makes this a magical image for me. Shooting in burst mode enabled me to capture just the right composition.”
Australia’s unique birds are celebrated in the annual BirdLife Australia Photography Awards. Some of the country’s best bird photographers submit their work for consideration each year, and the 2023 contest was no exception. Nine winners were singled out for their work, rising above more than 6,000 images that were submitted.
The winning photos are both a celebration of Australia’s spectacular and diverse birdlife and a powerful statement. Organizers BirdLife Australia and BirdLife Photography hope they will inspire more people to connect with, care about, and protect birds and nature.
Standout images include Kate Burgess’ action-packed photograph of a cockatoo in flight, which won the Birds in Flight category. As the cockatoo spread its wings in the forest, its individual feathers almost look like they’re touching the photographer’s lens. In terms of cuteness, Nikki Kenwrick’s winning image in the Backyard Birds category takes the cake. In the photo, an adorable Superb Blue Wren is perched on a gap in wood fencing. With its head thrown back and beak slightly open, we can almost hear its song.
The photo contest not only awards these incredible bird photographers, but it also gives back to help Australia’s bird population. The funds raised through entry fees support BirdLife Australia’s bird conservation work. This year, proceeds will go to its Birds on Farms project in central west New South Wales, helping landholders protect, restore, and revegetate threatened woodland bird habitat on their properties.
Scroll down for more winners and our favorite finalists, and then check out the full winner’s gallery for even more exceptional bird photography.
“Song of the Superb” by Nikki Kenwrick. Winner, Backyard Birds.
“There are several families of Superb Blue Wrens living at my mother’s place, and I often sit and watch them popping around her garden. They are such happy little birds.”
“Wings spread” by Tai M. Winner, Youth.
“During a walk along the Victoria Quay I was shooting some photos of the seagulls flying around me, I noticed there were moments where they would fly directly above me. I tried for a shot like this one a few times but failed until I eventually captured one of the birds scratching itself mid flight.”
“Where there is smoke there is fire” by Martin Anderson. Winner, Portfolio.
“The portfolio consists of a sequence of images that I was lucky to capture of a Brown Falcon trying to steal a free meal from a Spotted Harrier. The Spotted Harrier (Smoke Hawk) had just captured a Golden-headed Cisticola, and this did not go unnoticed by the Brown Falcon perched in a nearby tree. The Spotted Harrier was doing its best to hide the kill in its plumage as it flew gracefully across the field, when the Brown Falcon (one of Australia’s Fire Hawks) flew in to steal the prize. An interesting battle ensued and the prize fell to the ground unclaimed, the Harrier asserted dominance and the Brown Falcon left in defeat.”
“Morning! Time to get moving” by Veronica McPhail. Winner, Birds in the Landscape.
“Early morning movement from all residents along the south Perth foreshore. The swans awake and swim across the lake, looking for food.”
“Leapfrog” by Jason Moore. Shortlight, Birds in Flight.
“The classical flight shot of the Rainbow Bee-eater is the front on, wings spread “portrait”. I thought this side on perspective offered the viewer something a little unusual. I’m fond of the lighting in this image. The subject and perch are shrouded in shadow, but the distant background is being lit by sunlight, which has created a contrast between cool and warm colors which I find quite attractive.”
“Water trails” by Rebecca Harrison. Shortlist, Special Theme.
“A Little Egret takes off gracefully, leaving a sparkle of water droplets in its wake.”
“Anguish” by Kim Wormald. Shortlist, Human Impact.
“This was such a heart-wrenching situation, not only the adult’s anguish at being entangled in nylon filament but also the juvenile’s desperation as it tries to free its parent. I called a specialist rescue service that was unable to save this bird.”
“Casso-unwary” by Gail Yager. Shortlist, Bird Portrait.
“We were driving in Tully Gorge NP and pulled off the road. To our surprise, this young Southern Cassowary was standing there. He was as curious about us as we were about him—whilst maintaining a safe distance! I love the tilt of his head and the way his casque looks like a cap, which I have emphasized with the way I have cropped the photo.”
“Urban sentinel” by Stephen Spence. Shortlist, Backyard Birds.
“A White-faced Heron stands on the roof gutter of a house near the beach, its presence capturing the essence of the coastal surroundings. The black and white contrast adds depth to this urban encounter with nature. The image also captures the Heron’s elegant presence, symbolizing an urban sentinel amid the coastal landscape.”
“Piercing” by Colin Driscoll. Winner, Bird Portrait.
“Just on sunset a female Australasian Darter looks up from preening after her final successful fishing session for the day. These birds are so angular it is difficult to get an interesting composition. This shot captures what these birds do under water. One can imagine this is the last thing a fish sees as the long neck launches that bill piercing it like a spear fisher would.”
“Two’s company” by D’Artagnan Sprengel. Shortlist, Youth.
“Walking back to the car along the Coodanup Foreshore, I came across a large flock of what I believe were Little Corellas. They were feeding on the ground around the carpark. I saw these two perched together on an open branch and thought it would make a cute photo. I composed the image in portrait orientation and chose to overexpose the image to get a nice, clean, white background.”
A leucistic Australian Pied Oystercatcher catches the last light as it retreats to the mangroves. Cairns, Queensland, Australia
“Have you heard the one about…” by Franciscus Scheelings. Shortlist, Bird Behavior.
“While doing a bit of birding at the La Trobe University wetlands I noticed a large flock of Little Corellas on one of the ovals with several pairs rolling around in the grass. I got down as low as I could to fire off some shots and managed to get this photo of what looks like a couple of old friends sharing an hilarious joke.”
“Pollen Shower” by Guy Draper. Winner, Bird Behavior.
“I had spent several weeks returning to the same area of the park, watching and photographing a wide variety of native birds feeding on the Grass Trees. After taking a lot of front-lit shots, I set myself the challenge of getting some “last light” backlit shots, capturing some behavior with warmer light. I knew the instant I checked the back of the camera with this image that I’d captured a special moment, as the Yellow-faced Honeyeater showered itself in pollen as it plucked the flower from the stem!”
“Jambalaya on the Bayou” by Jason Moore. Winner, Special Theme.
“The somewhat messy, but beautifully coloured background inspired the title of this image. For those of you that don’t know, The Carpenters released a hit song in the 70’s called Jambalaya on the Bayou. It was a happy song with a tuneful beat, and it spoke of life on the Bayou… my thoughts of a Bayou include water everywhere, flooded cypress trees with Spanish Moss hanging from their branches, and swampland with wading birds…”
“Curlew construction consideration” by Gregory Abbott. Winner, Human Impact.
“One night in April, I went down to pick up a passenger off the late ferry. The Macleay Island jetty (then still under major reconstruction) was deserted except for myself and this attentive Bush Stone-Curlew. Both of us waiting. The Curlew just stood there as if the construction, signs, lights, and dead machinery had stumped it. I slowly walked to within a few meters and took the shot with my phone, then retreated a little. I too was somewhat stunned at the implications for wildlife of the multi-million dollar upgrade to jetty and the extended parking areas. I stood with the Curlew for a while. Then quietly I retreated to take a fenced in, man-made detour to the jetty proper. The concrete concentrations. Mine. The curlew’s… where will it go?”
The annual Pirelli calendar has been shot by a black photographer for the first time since its launch in 1964.
The 28-year-old Ghanaian visual artist Prince Gyasi was in LA when he first got the call from the Italian tyre company asking him to fly to New York for a “vibe check”.
Vibe checked, he got the job. The fact that he is the first black artist, and the first African, to shoot the calendar means a lot to him. “It’s about opening the door, opening the floodgate,” he said at a launch event in London on Wednesday.
“If I open it and I close the door there’s no reason for me being the first artist to do that. It’s about what happens after, does it continue … It’s not just about having the title … for me it’s about other people being able to touch that opportunity.”
The theme of this year’s calendar is timelessness, which is represented perhaps most literally through a shot of the evergreen Naomi Campbell standing in front of a melting, Dali-esque clock. Other names that Gyasi chose to shoot included the actor Idris Elba, the singer and actor Teyana Taylor, the footballer Marcel Desailly, the painter Amoako Boafo, and King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II of Ghana.
Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in US history, is also featured. She is up a ladder writing equations on a blackboard, next to which stands Margot Lee Shetterly, the author of Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race.
The photo, says Gorman, “is directly acknowledging that I stand on the shoulder of so many other people … it says that I was able to rise to where I am today because of people like her”.
The actor Angela Bassett is photographed in front of a huge door. “I think it’s glorious,” she says of her portrait. “This by far is the most beautiful shot and set that I’ve been a part of … this is exciting, a young man from Africa … he’s at the beginning of his career and he’s already a visionary. That adds to what makes it so special.”
Pirelli in recent times has embarked on a rebranding that has been nothing short of a total overhaul. It began with the famous photographer Annie Leibovitz being invited to shoot the 2016 edition, which featured pictures of clothed “sheroes” such as Yoko Ono and Serena Williams. For 2017, an unretouched Dame Helen Mirren was December, shot wrapped in a blanket, and a similarly unretouched Uma Thurman wore a polo neck. The 2018 calendar featured an all-black group of models, activists and actors shot by Tim Walker.
It is very different from the Pirellis of yore, which often featured women in no or next to no clothes, shot through the lens of the “male gaze”. Most on-the-nose, perhaps, was the 2010 calendar, shot by Terry Richardson, whose name has since become something of a byword for female exploitation in the fashion industry, with young models photographed eating bananas and pretending to eat cockerels.
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Gyasi says he came to the brand not through the calendars and their chequered past, but through Formula One. “I have a car, so I use the tyres,” he says. “My favourite rapper name-dropped Pirelli in his debut album. I watch sports every day so that’s where I know Pirelli from, I don’t know other things. I don’t do politics.”
The calendar, or “The Cal” as it is trademarked, isn’t available to buy. Part of its personal lore is that it is reserved for people the company deems big cheeses – key clients and VIPs. But despite this, it holds cultural capital. As Gorman put it to the New York Times recently: “It still matters.”
Speaking in London yesterday, she explained further: “in a world that is still incredibly digital and visual and imagery – based, being able to create images and representations of people is still such a cultural power to have, regardless if it’s a tyre company, a social media influencer or a poet.
“That type of, let’s say, authority over the images that enter the cultural space is astronomical. And so the idea that this institution is creating a calendar where the gaze is African … and where the talent is African or Black … I think that matters and shows our image matters and shows our lives matter.”
In the Now unites nearly fifty women artists who are resisting traditional ideas of gender and nationality, as well as of photography itself. The first museum survey of photography-based works by women artists born or based in Europe, this exhibition interrogates the continent’s legacies of nationalism and patriarchal power structures—which continue to shape everyday life, particularly for women.
In the Now highlights the expansive nature of the Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl Photography Collection at the Brooklyn Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Made entirely after 2000, the exhibition’s more than seventy artworks offer a window into the first decades of the twenty-first century. In the section titled “Gender,” photographers such as Bettina von Zwehl and Elina Brotherus contend with (mis)representations of women’s bodies and experiences, bucking against oppressive beauty standards and the male gaze. “Nation” unpacks the promises—and realities—of contemporary Europe and the ongoing fallout of European nationalism and colonialism. The controlled explosion in Sarah Pickering’s Landmine (2005), for example, underscores the relative peace in England as British troops supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And in “Photography,” women artists upend this male-dominated medium with experimental approaches—as in Shirana Shahbazi’s Farsh-13-2006 (2006), a Vermeer-inspired photographic portrait translated onto a carpet hand-knotted in her native Iran. Together the works defy outdated definitions of a woman, an artist, a nation, and a photograph.
Learn more about our touring exhibitions, and bring this exhibition to your institution by emailing exhibitions@brooklynmuseum.org.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue of the collection published by Steidl, featuring an essay by Rebecca Mark, Director of the Institute for Women’s Leadership and a professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University.
With every product made by DANTE – Goods And Bads the brand hopes to make a connection. To create someone’s favorite thing or for you to feel an unexpected emotion. Manufacturing warmth through these talisman is what it’s been all about for founders Aylin Langreuter and Christophe de la Fontaine since 2012. The pair recently worked with Haus Otto, industrial designers Patrick Henry Nagel and Nils Körner, on an aluminum chair and upholstered wall hook – the AL13 and Hold On – as part of The Jetzt, a 2023-2024 collection about being in the moment.
The AL13 armchair is made from laser-cut and bent aluminum sheets, and can be used both indoors and outdoors. The flexible extra wide armrests play double-duty as small side tables that can hold your book or beverage while you relax or as a spot for your laptop.
AL13 Chair
AL13’s parts can be disassembled for repairs and recycling, aluminum goes through the process extremely well thanks to its properties. The lounge chair is also available with upholstered seat cushions and in a bevy of bright colors.
AL13 Chair
AL13 Chair
AL13 Chair
AL13 Chair
AL13 Chair
Hold On
Hold On, a minimalist upholstered wall hook, is horizontal storage that allows the user to attach daily items with a quick gesture. Now your jacket, dog leash, and keys have a place to hangout and look good while doing it.
Hold On
Haus Otto began their creative process for the Hold On hold-all with the idea of upcycling and reusing materials in a cross-disciplinary way. They chose to use geometric cut-out shapes from the production of other products, creating an entirely new application from material that would otherwise be wasted.
Hold On
Hold On
You can choose to install the hook either vertically or horizontally. Hold On is available in a sizable color palette and various finishes, including velvet, bouclé, knit fabric, vegan curly fur, and vegan leather. There’s a selection of configurations – two to four units – to choose from as well.
Hold On
Hold On
Hold On
Hold On
To learn more about Hold On or AL13, visit dante.lu.
Minimizing reflections when shooting through glass can be challenging. But here are some tips to help you reduce or eliminate unwanted reflections.
I recently ran one of my SPLASH! Photography workshops. These are fun and messy, but working with glass, water, and High-Speed Sync with speed lights is a great learning curve.
I placed a small square fishtank on a table covered with black fabric. The fabric also extended up the back. I placed a Godox AD200 and strip box on one side with grid and diffusion and a silver reflector on the other side of the tank. The tank was 3/4 filled with tap water. I placed my camera on a tripod directly in front of the tank.
Speed light: Godox AD200 on 1/8 power, HSS on with Stripbox
Camera Gear: Sony A7RV and Tamron 28-75mm lens – f/8, ISO200, shutter 1/250 second, 28mm, Peak Design tripod
We used High-Speed Sync to capture the action of the objects being dropped into the water. We also had cameras on burst most. This allowed us to capture fast-falling objects short distances with great lighting. I have also done this with a slower shutter speed of 1/125 and a higher shutter speed as well. I have found that 1/250 second was enough on most cameras to get great results with plenty of lighting.
The trick is to block unwanted reflections from the tank and water while still reflecting enough light onto the subject. The strip box was placed on a slight angle to the tank to allow light to catch but not appear in reflections. Side of the tank is preferable to the front. A silver reflector was also used to bounce some light back onto the subject, but also placed far enough away to avoid reflections.
The biggest reflections were actually from the camera, the photographer and the background. I placed black v-flats behind the photographer and kept all ambient light to a minimum (enough to see and focus). Another great option was to hang block-out curtains and shoot through that, or place black fabric between the object and camera. Using a remote shutter release and removing the photographer from all reflections works well too.
It’s easy if you have one person throwing and one person shooting, but you can do it yourself. I recommend setting your camera on a tripod, framing your shot and getting focus. Try a larger object in the middle of the tank. Then switch to manual focus. If using continuous focus and a zoom lens, I found the lens tends to track and often fails to focus on your desired subject, grabbing the water or the tank instead. Manual focus is better.
A polarizing filter (CPL) can be effective in reducing reflections. Rotate the filter until you achieve the desired effect. This is particularly useful when shooting through glass, and windows or photographing reflective surfaces.
Clean the glass thoroughly before shooting to minimize smudges and fingerprints that can cause reflections. Use a lens cloth for this purpose. Don’t forget to occasionally check and clean any water drops from your lens too.
If reflections are still present in your images, you can use post-processing software to reduce or remove them. Tools like Photoshop allow you to clone or heal reflections. I find increasing blacks and contrast and adding a High Pass layer can work really well, as in the Before and After above.
Try different techniques and settings in various lighting conditions. Experimentation is key to finding the optimal approach for your specific shooting situation.
Remember that some reflections may be unavoidable, especially in certain lighting conditions or with highly reflective surfaces. In such cases, incorporating reflections creatively into your composition might be the best approach.
You can check out the behind the scenes video on my YouTube channel and get a feel for the setup.
