GBBC Behind the Scenes: Photo contest review
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This morning I spent a bit of time going through the bird photos submitted to the GBBC photo contest. Since we get thousands of photos, we can't put them all up on the website, but we try to get up as many as we can.
The first step in choosing photos to go up is to take a look and find those that stand out from the rest...maybe its a great shot of a common bird doing something interesting, or maybe its a photo of a bird we don't get to see that much.
Maybe it's just something beautiful!
I liked this mockingbird picture because it is an action pose of a bird in a human-dominated landscape like a yard, reminding us that birds are everywhere!
After choosing some photos to put on the public GBBC photos page, we make sure the birds are identified correctly. Sometimes that's a bit tricky, as we all know!
After the photos are chosen and reviewed, a copy is moved from our photo database onto the website for everyone to enjoy.
Since judging photos is a admittedly a subjective enterprise, and we have to go through thousands of photos to post several hundred online, please don't be offended if your photo doesn't show up on the website.
Even if one of our reviewers doesn't select it to show up on the website, it is still entered in the contest. The judges of the contest are not the same as the photo reviewers during the count, so its still a wide open competition, no matter what makes it onto the website initially!
Bird photos
I think it is an excellent photo also. I did question the choices made on past selections for the photo gallery. Most I agreed upon for finalists. I thought some of the best photos were overlooked or not placing first where I would have put them. I know it is subjective but exactly what are you wanting to see in the bird's photos?
Photo Contest
Always wondered what happened to the photos I have sent in. This clears up the mystery. Have been sending in pictures for the last 4 years and due to some success with the GBBC photo contest I am now hooked on taking bird pictures. Thank you and your volunteers who look at these pictures, you do a great job.