Five of the best - World Photography Day

August 19 is World Photography Day, a day to pay homage to the history of photography, celebrate the present and leave a positive trail for the future. World Photography Day originates from the invention of the daguerreotype, a photographic processes developed by Louis Daguerre. It is arguable as to whether Louis Daguerre got there first but he was certainly a very early bird in the photography stakes.

By now it is estimated that over 20 billion photographs are taken every year throughout the world. That is a lot. In fact if you looked at each one for a second it would take you 636 years (less a couple of days) to see them all. We don't have that much time of course which means we will only be able to see a fraction of the photographs taken.

So to celebrate I have decided to help you and show you five photogrpahs that have caught me eye this year. I hope that you like them. 

The one at the top by the way was taken by Amdad Hossain and was a winner in the photojournalist stakes, of a homeless woman in Bangladesh and reminded me of how lucky I was.

Russian photographer Oleg Ershov took this picture which was a winner of the International Landscape Photographer of the year recently. He took it in Cumbria, which shows that us Britons don't have to go far to find winning pictures - we just have to see them...

British photographer Sam Rowley captured these squabbling mice on the London Underground to win the Lumix wildlife prize...again showing that what is around us can be a winner.

This architectural phot by Hazel Parreno of Hintze Hall at the Natural History Museum also caught my eye. It's simplicity belies the detail within the picture.

Last but not least is this picture which won the Birdlife section of the British Photography Awards. It was taken by Kathryn Cooper. It may not be obvious what it is a picture of so here is what Kathryn says of it :- 

"A small group of starlings lead the way as the entire flock surges overhead. In a new take on long exposure photography, I capture short bursts of frames and use my own simple algorithm to flatten them into a single image in post processing. I find that insights emerge from the resulting images that traditional long exposure techniques are not sharp enough to capture. I studied the mathematics of natural phenomena such as murmurations and avalanches during my doctorate and have found the process of turning this flock behaviour into art quite fascinating. This image was taken at RSPB Old Moor in Yorkshire, UK. I visited the reserve several times during the winter of 2018/19 to refine this technique and capture the fluid motion of the starlings. Visitors are lucky enough to be able to stand directly underneath the starlings' flight path and the noise of so many birds moving as one is phenomenal."

All pictures used in this Blog are copyright of the photographers who took them.