Judges Comments

Your image documents the structure and colour of the fungi quite well but it falls short of being an award winning image in this competition for several reasons. The lighting on the top of the fungi is OK, but more light reflected into the stem area would have improved it. The details towards the front of the image are good, but there is some softness in the fungi at the rear. The close cropping gives impact to the image but almost totally excludes the context in which it was taken, thus limiting one important aspect of the nature story. As a result of the last point, the image would probably do better in an open competition than a nature competition where it has to compete against images that tell strong and obvious nature stories.