AWP Photography Competition - Winning Images from July 2022

Starting with the Honorable Mentions, here are the images that won me over in this month’s competition. The theme was “Colorful Coleopterans”, AKA Beautiful Beetles. All of these pictures, except for the first one, below, were taken by the entrants and they are given credit in the image captions.

My token beetle, a Buprestid, smaller than a grain of rice

All of these images are used with permission and the copyright, in every case, remains with the artist. For further information regarding the images or the artists, please head over to Discord. The names use here are the Discord handles for each photographer. Enjoy the wonderful images!

This competition is getting harder and harder to adjudicate each month. There are some truly wonderful photographs in this collection, and picking a winner was looking like it was going to be more difficult than usual, until I saw the winner. I will get to that picture in due course, but as usual I would like to begin by mentioning a few of the entries that deserve special recognition. Actually, all of the entries deserve special mention, as every photograph had something that caught my attention. And this is the hard part - I want to single out every artist who submitted their work, but then it would start to feel like my daughter’s soccer club, when she was little - if she showed up, they gave her a trophy. The kids that really played well must have left feeling slighted (not a problem we had to deal with) and the ones that didn’t play well took home a very confusing lesson about life.

Anyway… as usual, I will be mentioning the entries that were on my short list, and to get onto the short list, a picture had to be technically excellent, thoughtfully composed, well lit, without distractions, etc. I look at the out of focus parts of the image as carefully as the in-focus parts. Examples of the kinds of things that will trip up an otherwise winning image may be as subtle as an unlovely bokeh, a distracting hair or fiber, specular highlights, or lost details in the dark areas of the photograph. I do take into account the relative difficulty of some field shots, being a little more forgiving with pictures captured in nature. And lastly, judging is, by its nature, a subjective process - and I can’t not be affected by the images that appeal to me. So it helps if I like it!

Honorable Mentions

Honorable mentions go to Gilles for very beautiful weevil images and the blue tiger - all three were very close to perfect.

Green Weevil by Gilles

Same could be said for Job3141592’s hairy beetle - great shot of a difficult subject.

Hairy Beetle from Job3141592

AmyFiveAquatics gets a nod for the beautiful red/yellow weevil.

Biz, you very nearly had it with the extraordinary Chrysolina.

Al gets a shoutout for the Cicindela eating a fly - not an easy shot of this fast moving, elusive creature.

Tiger Beetle Eating Fly by Al

Hoffer gets a hats off from me for one of the most interesting compositions in his very subtle portrait of  the milkweed bug looking inconspicuous (keep it up Hoffer - great things are expected of you now!)

A Milkweed Bug by Hoffer

Another very respectable showing from Asylum, who never fails to charm with very well composed shots - in fact the pale green weevil on the buttercup (or whatever that blossom is) is a perfect example of his compositional skills.

Green Weevil on Yellow Flower by asylum

Multiple mentions go to William Bodine for the pristine Pygora (two views) but especially for the beautifully understated Carabus sp. on the most unique and creative background - this is the kind of picture that I would buy for my wall.

Pygora (dorsal) by William Bodine

and the underside of the same

Another nod to Kees for a lovely technical image of Anchomenus.

Anchomenus by Kees

RUNNER-UP

Any one of these honorable mentions could have been this month’s runner up, were it not for a pair of entries that scooped up both the runner-up place and the winner’s podium at the same time - I don’t even know if I have a rule about this, I don’t think so. I am delighted to announce the runner-up award goes to BudP for his exquisite portrait of the slightly surprised looking pasture wireworm beetle (head and thorax ventral view). The image is technically perfect with excellent lighting and a brilliant use of creative flagging to give the little beetle an attentive cross-eyed look. This is a very unique and clever way to  grab the viewers’ attention, and hold it. Given that this little critter rolls around in dung all day and night, bud gets an extra gold star for the extraordinary job he did in getting this specimen cleaned up.

July’s Runner Up - from BudP - the Pasture-Wireworm Beetle

AND THE WINNER IS…

So, Bud’s wireworm beetle might have won the Gallery Spot forSeptember, had he not been pipped at the post by BudP and his first Japanese beetle entry, which is the winner of the July competition. This is an understated photograph, taken from a very unconventional and challenging position directly above the dorsal thorax of this most reflective of beetles. Bud uses a combination of focus stacking and selective focus to draw interest to the subtle tone shift at the center of the thorax - the head is almost a bystander, gazing out of the frame, k[making me feel a little like voyeur, from this uncommon angle. The gradient of yellow, through green to red then inky blackness as the eye drifts right across the elytra is perfect. This is a very successful image, and from a gentleman who is relatively new to the world of extreme macro (though an otherwise experienced photographer), it is a masterpiece! Congratulations to Bud Perrot for a strong win in July’s competition.

The Winning Image for July, also from BudP, Japanese Beetle

Way to go Bud!!!

So that is it for July! Bud’s wonderful picture will grace the cover of our Calendar for the month of September, which will surely bring him unimaginable fame and fortune!

Thanks to everyone who participated - keep up the great work! Let me know what you think about this new announcement format… Discord is simply not the best platform for this kind of post, but what do you think? One announcement woth a link to this page is what you can expect - and when you get here all the images will be in one place, in all their glory. Let me know…

Allan