Photo Competition

Congratulations to Emma Falconer who is the winner of the Communicate Science Photo Competition 2010. Emma wins for her photograph entitled "Butterflies" which was taken at the Oxford University Natural History Museum.

A copy of Reading the Irish Landscape by Frank Mitchell and Michael Ryan is winging its way to the winner.

Honorable mention goes to Greg Harris for his surface tension image and Janet Edwards for her image of Belmullet. Both of these photos really caught the judges' attention.

A special thank you to all those who submitted photographs and the judges who had the difficult task of choosing a winner. The full shortlist can be viewed below.

Well done everyone!!

The Communicate Science Photo Competition 2010 was launched on April 1st this year and entries were accepted up until Saturday May 15th. 

Which photo do YOU like best? Leave a comment below.

  

First up is a panoramic shot of Morahan Bay, Belmullet, Co. Mayo, "the coastline changing from battered rugged rocks beaten by the Atlantic Sea to protected sandy shores". The photo was submitted by Janet Edwards from Beckenham, UK.

Gregg Harris submitted the following photo to the competition. The photo shows a drop of liquid and demonstrates surface tension.

The next photo comes from Patrice Dunlea in Fermoy, Co. Cork and she mentions that it demonstrates "incomplete dominance in roan colour cattle" as well as looking "really cute"!

The photo below is from Leon Murphy (age 11) and is entitled 'Take Off'. It shows "a house looking like it is about to take off" and was shot near Baileborough Co. Cavan.

The next image was taken by Heinrich Rhodes from Cape Town, South Africa and is a perfect example of a creature blending in with its environment. Taken in his own garden, the image shows what is likely to be a painted reed frog nestling in a flower.

Eamonn Murray submitted this photo of ice crystals taken over last Christmas in Athenry, Co. Galway:

This next image is a quirky take on the "expert in his field" theme by Birmingham-based David Urwin. This guy is really out, standing in his field.

Next up is an experimentation with gravity (and juice) by Lynn Nalty (www.moments.ie) who is based in Co. Dublin.

This next image comes from Shirley Cooper in Aberdeen who has been working on aerenchyma (root borne air channels) in rice plants. "It is a transverse hand section of a rice root about 5 weeks after emergence taken with the infinity analyse programme/microscope". Shirley notes that it represents many hours of hard work in the lab - time well spent.

Now, something to cool you down (if you're experiencing the unseasonably warm weather in Ireland). This image comes from Humphrey Jones of the Frog Blog and shows Alaska's Hubbard Glacier in all its glory. Humphrey writes: "It was truly one of the most spectacular sights I’d ever seen, 76 miles long, 6 miles wide at the face, 90 feet tall with pieces the size of houses falling off every couple of minutes as it advances by 80 feet a year. It is also one of the few glaciers in the world that is growing."

 

Heather Simonds from Canada sent us this next picture. "These are drops of sugar water (add sugar so that the drop will remain round) tinted slightly pink with food colouring and dropped onto a glass surface. The glass table was thick and underneath is the bromeliad. The image is duplicated in many ways thru the glass into the drops."

You can see lots more of Heather's photography at www.lightmatters.ca

This next photo comes from Stephanie Suesan Smith (www.stephaniesuesansmith.com) from Texas and features a cypress swamp in East Texas. "Although it looks like a solid mat of grass, that is actually aquatic plants over water.  In fact, there are alligators that live in this particular swamp, so trying to walk across the top of the mats would be a bad idea."

 

The following image is from Carl Reid, Southport, UK and is a close up of ferrofluid - "the weird oily goop that’s sensitive to magnetic fields and is used for cooling loudspeakers and for lubricating bearings in outer space!"

 

This image was submitted by Emma Falconer (www.emmasrosettes.com) and is called 'Butterflies'. Emma tells us that the photo was taken at Oxford University Museum of Natural History and that it represents the Victorian idea of science- "Catch it, kill it and stuff it. Luckily we've moved on a bit since then."

The next image is from Nanya Sudhir from Delhi India and is entitled 'Carbon dated or outdated?'

Nanya describes it as "A humourous view of the archaic lab equipment still used to teach undergraduate science students at our college. The low viewpoint emphasises how small we feel in the eyes of the professors and heads of department, who ignore our persistent efforts to contemporise what we are learning."

This entry came from Sean Conroy of www.DeadL.ie and shows "High speed photography - utilising a fast shutter speed and large quantities of light, with mixing food colourings to create the perfect tone to create a split second capture of water in an unnatural state.
...and it's pretty too!"

 

The next entry comes from Rebekah Mate-Kole Rampe in Tema, Ghana who says: " I saw these ants in the sand and got on the ground and captured the moment!" The image is entitled Interrupted Work. 

Please note: These images are copyright of their respective owners. They should not be used in any way without the express permission of the owners.