Natural History Competition

Heliophilus Pendulus hoverfly ovipositing

One of my favourite competitions at the camera club is, unsurprisingly, the Natural History Competition, even though I never expect to win.  This year, we could enter three pictures, in any combination of projected or printed.  The main rule is that the pictures are ‘straight’, cropping and adjustment of exposure, levels etc are allowed, but taking things out or adding things in is not.  It also has to be a picture taken in the wild, e.g. no garden flowers.

This hoverfly is one of those I entered as a projected image.  It is a photo I took last year and is one with which I am pretty pleased, I hoped to do well.  I had even discovered the latin name thanks to John Showers, someone I met through the Northamptonshire bird club, who also runs Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust hoverfly identification courses – my picture will now feature in one of these courses (a fact of which I am very proud)!

The judge on the night apparently takes a lot of pictures of wildlife for competitions and has been judging for a few years.  He was also a very poor judge.  I was not too unhappy with the points awarded, and do not doubt his ability to judge a picture (well, not too much), but, his knowledge of Natural History appeared to me to be woefully inadequate.  Whilst I am not claiming that you need the knowledge of Chris Packham to judge a local camera club competition, I do expect the judge to know the difference between a hoverfly and a wasp (especially when the title of the piece was ‘hoverfly’) and to know the difference between baby blackbirds and starlings (with the latin name in the title). Although, apparently, the judge professed to making up latin names if they were needed for any of the competitions he entered.

He also stated that some pictures would have gained more marks if they had been photoshopped – perhaps he should have read the rules before starting the judging.  Is there any way of complaining about a judge?

For those interested in the photo, it is of a Heliophilus Pendulus hoverfly, taken in my garden, handheld using my 100mm macro lens, ISO 400 (remarkably clear for this setting), f/8, 1/200secs.