I was delighted to find out that Ed Short won the NVPS Ollie Fife Image of the Year Award. Above is his winning image of a Snow Monkey captured on one of my Winter in Japan Photo Tours. Ed and his wife Valerie both attended the workshop and both created some very beautiful images. Ed’s winning image has a lot going for it— I love the soft background, the head turn and the snow falling. BTW, it isn’t as easy as some folks think to create an image like the one above. Huge congrats Ed!! I want to share some words about the image from Ed.
From Ed:
This image of a baby Macaque was captured on our last day at the monkey park in in Feb 2018 while traveling with Denise Ippolito and Paul McKenzie. This year had been unseasonably warm without much snow. Fortunately, Denise and Paul always allow multiple days in one place. For wildlife this is particularly important. Often the first day in a place like this you are shooting nonstop with excitement which doesn’t result in your best images.
Each evening, Denise visited to review culled images with my wife and I. Paul provided tips on where to shoot within the park and behavior of the monkeys. All these coaching sessions are apparent in the image you see here -- shallow depth of field, tack sharp, appropriate shutter speed to capture snow falling, and most of all patience to wait for just the right moment for this little monkey to turn its head.
Ed Short