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Sunil's Bird Photography

Awards

Audubon Photography Awards Win

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I’m thrilled with my win of the Fisher Prize in the 2023 Audubon Photography Awards. The winning photograph shows the interaction between a pelican in the water at night and the ghostly silhouette of a shark swimming up underneath it.

Brown Pelican and Galapagos Shark

From the APA description of the award:

 It recognizes the most creative approach in photographing birds—for example, highlighting an unexpected point of view—blended with technical expertise and an original composition. The Fisher prize pushes the traditional canons of bird photography to daring new heights, while never compromising strict ethical guidelines.

The image was created while on a family trip to the Galapagos last year. You can read more about that trip as a whole here.

Suffice to say, the cruise was photographically very productive, but the fun doesn’t stop when everyone goes to bed. At night, when the boat was anchored, the lights off the stern attracted many little fish. This in turn attracted several Galapagos Shark as well and a Brown Pelican. With my daughter acting as a spotter, I was able to photograph a few different interactions between the two species including this shot where the shark swims right under the pelican.

I have always been a huge proponent of shooting in very little light, and the latest technology makes it easier than before. That said, this was a very noisy shot at ISO-25600. Many props to the fine Canon R3 and denoising capabilities of Topaz Denoise AI for letting me pull this off.

The image will be in the Summer edition of Audubon Magazine.

In London for the BRITISH WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS

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Life and death at the edge of the world – Shetland Isles

I was thrilled to announce last month that this image of mine had won the Animal Behavior category of the 2018 BRITISH WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS. The BWPA aims to recognise the talents of photographers practicing in the UK, while at the same time highlighting the great wealth and diversity of Britain’s natural history. This makes it especially noteworthy for me as I have only been to the UK once (when I took this image) and my British wildlife portfolio is quite limited. I do hope to rectify that soon.⠀

I had the opportunity to visit London and attend the awards show, meet with several of my fellow photographers based in the UK, Maggie Gowan who established the BWPA and RSPB president Miranda Krestovnikoff who hosted the evening.

At the Awards Ceremony

The awards received very good coverage in the UK and international press.
The Guardian: LINK
The Telegraph: LINK

I also had an interview appear in the local Shetland press: SHETLAND TIMES.

And of course – a mention by PETAPIXEL.

Naturally, I brought my camera along to London and took some images..

But it was a short trip – so until next time!

A Journey to the walls of the Smithsonian

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I’m thrilled to have an image selected in the Highly Honored section of the BIRDS category in the very prestigious NATURE’S BEST 2016 WINDLAND SMITH RICE INTERNATIONAL AWARDS COMPETITION. This image of an Indigo Bunting on a freshly opening sunflower was photographed not far from my home at the POPE FARM CONSERVANCY in Wisconsin. It made a short list with some other very talented photographers from over 20,000 images submitted from 51 countries.

The image will be displayed in large format (courtesy Epson America) at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC in an exhibit that opens October 24, 2016.

My original intention in visiting the conservancy that morning was to photograph some of the beautiful sunflower blooms present during their annual ‘Sunflower Days’ event held each year in late summer. I brought my telephoto lens along to be able to isolate distant flowers with short DOF shots. While I was putting together some of those distant shots, I heard the unmistakable song of the Indigo Bunting in the distance. I knew the deep blue colors of the bird might present some fantastic photo opportunities in the sea of yellow sunflowers. Sure enough – after some waiting, the stunning blue male popped out and sang for a while as it worked the field. This image is one of those taken during that time.

The Nature’s Best competition selected it on a short list of ~ 350 semi-finalists along with this other image of mine which shows Ruff displaying on a lek in Northern Finland. After reviewing the original RAW files and subsequent rounds of judging, the image of the Indigo Bunting on a freshly opening sunflower made the final cut and ended up on display on the walls of the Smithsonian.

I had an opportunity to visit the museum this week and took this photograph of it hanging on the wall of the special exhibits section of the Natural History Museum along with SOME OTHER FANTASTIC PHOTOGRAPHS.