Otago Wildlife Photography Exhibition

Hi all,

I recently entered the Otago Wildlife Photography Exhibition with this 'Hawk Flight' photo I took in March this year. My family and I travelled 4 hours to Dunedin to get to the opening of the exhibition. The exhibition is held in the Otago Museum and runs until 12 October 2014, showcasing 1,189 photographs in total.

The opening and awards ceremony was held on Wednesday 28th May. I ended up winning two prizes - Winner of the Animal Category, and the 15th Anniversary Special prize; I was surprised and amazed to win these awards, I thought all the other entries were stunning. The overall prize winner went to Murray McCulloch with his beautiful 'Flower refraction' macro photograph.

The most common question I was asked once the exhibition was opened, was "How did you achieve this shot?". Well, the key is patience, or stubbornness in my case! Waiting in the hide for hours without making a sound is the only way to get these very nervous birds to land. They soar around checking for any suspicious sounds or movement before they will land, once one arrives then others will see them feeding and come in to have their turn. In this picture the darker hawk was already on the ground feeding on a dead rabbit when another older bird decided to attack. They don't like sharing and the birds end up fighting, the younger bird managed to flip over on it's back in an instant to defend it's kill from the attacker. This all happened in an instant and I was just firing pictures as faster as I could hoping that one might be in focus and capture the action, I got very lucky with this shot!

I felt very surprised and honoured to win these awards, considering my picture was taken in my back garden, and some of the entries were taken as far away as Africa and Alaska! If you are in the area, i'm sure you would love to go and see the exhibition.

Thanks for visiting,
Simon

you can check out my 'how to take a hawk photo' tutorial here.