articles/Profiles/Meet-the-Judges-aug15-page4
Published 01/08/2015
You'd think that with over seventy thousand images in his library, stock photographer Steve Allen would be considering slowing down - but you'd be wrong. Even now Steve is planning a nine-week trip around Scandinavia and Eastern Europe to capture a whole new set of travel images for his agencies. Steve's passion is shooting wildlife and travel images; capturing the spirit of the places he's been and the animals he has seen, and of course judging competitions and qualification panels for The Societies.
"You need action' says Steve when I ask him what makes a really great wildlife image. "Action in wildlife is what really makes a picture stand out. Rather than a shot of a bird sat still on a branch, it's better if it's swooping down with its wings open, has a beak full of food, or perhaps it could be fighting with another bird." Of course it's much more difficult to take these kind of shots, but for competition entries it pays to go that extra mile. That extra mile includes taking a trip to the animal's natural habitat too: 'I don't think you can really take good wildlife pictures in a zoo' Steve tells me when I ask about how to get impact into wildlife shots. 'I mean there are exceptions, you might be able to pass one or two off as wildlife images, but it's usually fairly obviously that they're zoo pictures. It's things like the vegetation that the animal is standing in front of, or where you can see that the grass has been cut. Details like that give away that a picture has been taken in a zoo.'
There are 0 days to get ready for The Society of Photographers Convention and Trade Show at The Novotel London West, Hammersmith ...
which starts on Thursday 1st January 1970