You Be the Judge: Hand of Man « Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

You Be the Judge: Hand of Man

You Be the Judge: Hand of Man

The judging for the BIRDS AS ART 1st International Bird Photography Competition has been complete for some time. All of the judges including me were stunned by the quality of the images. We will be posting all of the images that were sent to the judges category by category. Each of you will have a chance to judge these images one group at a time. Please read the directions below carefully. Your votes will not determine the winning images but it has been and will be fun to see how everyone’s votes compare to the votes of the judges. So far the top pick of the public vote has matched the top pick of the judge’s panel in two of the three categories that have been posted; I suspect that the same will be true here despite that fact that there are again so many fine images.

Below are the thirteen images in the Hand of Man category that were sent to the five judges: Darrell Gulin, Chris Van Rooyen, Julie Zickefoose, Tim Laman (who filled in for a honey-mooning Andy Rouse), and yours truly. Here is another big time thank you to Darrell, Chris, Julie, and Tim. And a big time thanks also to Peter Kes and Denise Ippolito for helping me choose the images that were sent to the judges. We worked very hard for nearly three full days to get from more than 5500 images down to the final 163.

The Hand of Man category was defined as follows: the composition must include man-made elements. After a somewhat slow start HOM turned out to be a very popular category.

Before you vote, please click on each image to view it at full size. Then pick your five favorites and vote them 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 with 5 being your very favorite. Like this:

Great Egret on spillway: 5
Kingfisher on barbed wire : 4
Burrowing Owl on wooden cross: 3
Jay on tombstone: 2
Bird on the fence: 1

The “Sample Vote” above is for illustrative purposes only. Please do not let the sample vote, the votes of others, or the names assigned to the images influence your vote. Please put each of your five favorites on its own line by hitting “enter” after each one. No ties; please assign a single digit, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 to each of your five favorites. As you will see there are a great many beautiful, interesting, and even thought-provoking images here.

If you wish to comment on any or all of the images, please do so below your five voting lines; this will make tallying the votes easier. Votes cast by those who fail to follow the formatting directions will be relegated to the Trash Bin.

A tally of the public vote along with the actual winning images for each category will be announced approximately 48 hours after each posting.

Thanks for voting and please remember to breathe deeply and have fun.

Black-tailed Godwit

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Great Egret on spillway

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Kingfisher on barbed wire

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Burrowing Owl on wooden cross

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Jay on tombstone

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Bird on the fence

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Short-eared owl and wind turbines

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Parrot in box

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Penguins and ship

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Ring-billed Gull and plastic bottle cap

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Vultures on structure

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Duckling and Lincoln Memorial

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Starling on broken lamp cover

69 comments to You Be the Judge: Hand of Man

  • 5 Great Egret on Spillway
    4 Kingfisher on barbed wire
    3 Duckling & Lincoln Memorial
    2 Black-tailed Godwit
    1 Burrowing Owl on Wooden Cross

    Great job to all. Again very hard to make decisions

    Tim Clifton

  • avatar John Williams

    Black-tailed Godwit: 5
    Vultures on Structure: 4
    Bird on Fence: 3
    Great Egret on Spillway: 2
    Short-eared Owl and Wind Turbines: 1

    I picked photos based on this corresponding criteria 5) beauty 4) design + perspective 3) minimalism + patterns w/ point of interest 2) tonal & geometric patterns w/ point of interest 1) simple patterns w/ strongest thematic content (unintended consequences).

  • 5 Black-tailed Godwit
    4 Jay on Tombstone
    3 Kingfisher on Wire
    2 Burrowing Owl on Wooden Cross
    1 Short-eared owl and Wind Turbines

  • avatar Alice Meronek

    5. Great egret on spillway
    4. Vultures on structure
    3. Duckling and Lincoln memorial
    2. Jay on tombstone
    1. Burrowing owl on wooden cross

    All on these are excellent!!
    I went more for which I would like to see on my screensaver every day so light and color and humor rated very high.
    All of these are winners and so hard to choose.

  • avatar Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

    I did close comments at 8:45 am today, 6:18 but did not notice this:

    Fatal error: Class ‘nggMeta’ not found in /home/amorris/domains/birdsasart-blog.com/public_html/baa/wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/nggfunctions.php on line 839

    So if anyone wishes to vote their votes will be counted until Jim tallies the votes this afternoon or Peter Kes fixes the fatal error.

  • avatar Richard Zbinden

    Black Tailed Godwit. 5
    Kingfisher on barbed wire. 4
    Ring billed gull. 3
    Burrowing Owl. 2
    Jay on a Tombstone. 1

    I could do this again in a month and give them a different order..many are very close and would take a sophisticated scoring system to be consistent.

    This is a great idea and educational for me.

    Thanks Art for all your time and efforts. You are a Gem in the bird photo world.

    Cheers!

  • avatar Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

    Voting in this category is now closed. The winners will be announced later today (Monday 6-18-12). Thanks to all who voted.

  • Great Egret on spillway: 5
    Bird on the fence: 4
    Penguins and ship: 3
    Vultures on structure: 2
    Duckling and Lincoln Memorial: 1

    Great images. Like others, I favored images whose story seemed most related to the “hand of man”. It was disappointing to leave Parrot in a box off the list. I would be curious to see Vultures on a structure as a B&W, which I think would bring out its strong composition.

  • avatar Deirdre Sheerr-Gross

    Parrot in box 5
    Kingfisher on barbed wire 4
    Duckling & Lincoln Memorial 3
    Great Egret on spillway 2
    Penguins and ship 1

    What terrific photos…
    The Hand of Man… indeed!
    This has been an honor and a privilege..
    Not to mention a learning experience
    …and a lot of fun!
    Many thanks…

  • avatar Sarah Mayhew

    Great Egret on Spillway 5
    Burrowing Owl on Cross 4
    Short Eared Owl and Wind Turbines 3
    Ducking and Lincoln Memorial 2
    Bird on Fence 1

  • 5 Burrowing Owl on wooden cross
    4 Duckling and Lincoln Memorial
    3 Bird on the fence
    2 Black-tailed Godwit
    1 Ring-billed Gull and plastic bottle cap

  • avatar Jeff

    Great egret on spillway: 5
    Duckling and Lincoln Memorial: 4
    Bird on fence: 3
    Parrot in box: 2
    Penguins and ship: 1
    All in all a very nice group of pictures. It is an interesting combination of people using and abusing birds and birds using manmade objects for their benefit. I voted for how much impact I thought the manmade object had on the artistic composition.

  • Great egret on spillway: 5
    Black-taild godwit:4
    Starling: 3
    Bird on fence: 2
    Burrowing owl: 1

    Another one I would truly hate to judge. Liked them all. Wonder if the duckling made it out of the pool…

  • Great Egret on spillway: 5
    Bird on the fence: 4
    Starling on broken lamp cover: 3
    Black-tailed Godwit:2
    Vultures on structure:1

  • avatar Kathleen Hanika

    5-Duckling and Lincoln Memorial
    4-Great egret on spillway
    3-Burrowing owl on wooden cross
    2-Short eared owl and wind turbines
    1-Parrot in box

    All of these are great images.

  • avatar Martin Sanders

    Great Egret on spillway:5
    Bird on the fence:4
    Short-eared owl and wind turbines:3
    Kingfisher on barbed wire:2
    Parrot in box:1

    Although I voted Parrot in a box last it tells the best story with great depth of feeling