New Rankings for the New Year

 Year 2025

Northern Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans melanota) Shaw Woodlot • Ontario, Canada. 
Canon PowerShot G7 X

From the website Viewbug received the award of Staff Favourite which I was so honoured to receive seeing that this is one of my all time favourite Northern Green Frog photos. It took some balancing act to be able to capture this angle of the frog it being floating in the Snake River. I was able to have one foot on a rock in the river to get this shot and the frog amazingly cooperated in the photo session, I have yet to duplicate the scenario on my lengthy adventures as a nature photographer. But it seems that I have a high regard in my frog photos, them being some of my most popular photos online. 

Now how I have been doing on Photocrowd getting awards of Highly Commended and Merited from a panel of judge results, I have also placed first on the Leaderboard for the first week of participation on the website. These are the said photos in particular :

Snowshoe Hare (Lepus americanus) Shirleys Bay, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Canon EOS M100

This image has also faired well on other websites including YouPic.com but has yet to be included on a competition site. The Premium Contest : New Joiners - Animals #772. Ranking Points = 19,750 and placing 19th position with the crowd. This being a good indoctrination to the competitive site and placing into contests. 

Northern Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans melanota) Foley Mountain Conservation Area, Ontario, Canada. Canon EOS R7

My prized image that was taken last year on my birthday places second in the competition racket. The Premium Contest : New Joiners - Animals #772. Ranking Points = 13,500 and placing 11th position with the crowd. This photo has now bypassed all other to be the number one on Flickr and is still in the competition on Flickr for Your Best Shot of 2024, which will come to completion at the end of January 2025. 

Coming in third in competition turns out to be one of my squirrel photos that I seem to be famous for they are always ranking well on the Flickr site : The Big Yawn. Featured in the Community Contest : Expressions in the Animal Kingdom. Ranking Points = 8,474 and placing 335th position with the crowd and no judges involved. So anyways that is what I have been up to for my new year of 2025 it takes sometime to get involved in all these contests and competitions but the results are sometimes surprising to me and it is so very odd to me at what makes a prize winning photo. Some show a similarity across the sites and some are a mystery that come out of nowhere to be placed. It will surely be interesting seeing how I place in the future as I get more involved with these competitions, 2025 will be known as the year of rankings as I keep presenting my work to the audiences of the web. Sure wish you could comment and let me know how I am doing and maybe we can solve these mysteries of what makes a perfect shot. Maybe in a future post I will let you know how well the photograph selling is doing on the web or just continue to let you know how I am placing in the contest that I am involved in. We will see how things are going ... I think they discontinued my series Canon EOS M camera which I wanted to purchase anew this year, so I bought a telephoto lens for my R7 so I can get some distance shots as apposed to all my macro shots that I have been featuring. Maybe I will venture away from my popular frog shots that I am so known for. 

Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus) Britannia Conservation Area, Mud Lake, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Canon EOS M100