Mixed Seabirds. RSPB Bempton Cliffs, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
Photographer: Kathryn Cooper, United Kingdom. Category: Creative Imagery. SILVER AWARD WINNER.
Photographer's Story: ‘I visited Bempton Cliffs in June 2018, a place where half a million seabirds gather; they are drawn by plentiful nesting sites located along a 17-mile stretch of cliffs that are up to 400 feet high. The sheer number of birds in the air is a true wildlife spectacle and difficult to depict in a photograph. This image is part of a larger creative project that combines my inquisitiveness for art, science and nature. My background in science and programming allows me to write my own bespoke algorithms to compress the time dimension of a video onto a single image. To give you a sense of scale, this image contains ‘bird tracks’ captured over a five second period.’
Canon EOS 70D with Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. 32mm focal length; images taken from video captured at 25 frames/second; 1/395 second; f/14; ISO 640. Handheld, fence post used to stabilise.
