Wild beauty

CALENDAR

John Craven reflects on the qualities that he and his fellow judges look for when selecting the Countryfile Calendar finalists

Wildlife photographer Hamza Yassin, BBC Radio 2 DJ Edith Bowman and Countryfile presenter John Craven selected the 12 images that will appear in the *Countryfile Calendar 2024*

For me, one of the great joys of being outdoors comes when you capture on camera, maybe even unexpectedly, that special moment when a wild creature does something wonderful in front of your lens.

Recently, I was privileged to share many such moments, as experienced by Countryfile viewers, when I sifted through the long list of entries in our annual photographic competition. The theme of ‘Wild Britain’ proved to be a fantastic showcase for our native flora and fauna.

All the old favourites were there – red squirrels, fox cubs, lone trees, puffins, spectacular vistas – as well as new, sometimes quirky, impressions of our natural world. But with the quality increasing every year, it was photos with ‘wow’ factor that caught the judges’ eyes.

Joining me on the panel were Radio 2’s Edith Bowman, an avid photographer, and Hamza Yassin, wildlife cameraman and presenter who gained millions more fans when he won Strictly Come Dancing last year.

Our final chosen 12, reproduced here, get star billing in next year’s Countryfile Calendar, with the overall winner on the cover. Since it began in 1998, the calendar has raised more than £28m for BBC Children in Need. The photo competition started seven years earlier and has attracted well over half a million entries. That’s nothing compared to the five billion images that are taken every year around the world, but it does make it one of the UK’s premier photographic contests. Edith, who did a City & Guilds course to learn the mechanics of photography, fondly remembers being invited to show her pictures at an exhibition.

“With the quality increasing every year, photos with ‘wow’ factor caught the judges’ eyes”

“It was lovely to see them blown up and hanging on a wall,” she says, “because normally you just see them on a screen in your hand. The pictures we have chosen will be hanging on walls for a month each.” Edith, a first-time judge, reflects: “It’s been inspiring to realise how much love, how much time, how much dedication has gone into taking these photos.”

Hamza brought a professional’s eye, quite literally, to the judging. “I look into the eyes of an animal to see if flash was used; in one picture of a tawny owl I could see four or five photographers reflected in its eye!

“I’m so envious of some of the pictures, wondering, ‘How on Earth did they get the shot? How was that image set up?’ The results have been stunning – we have seen such a good representation of wild Britain.”

OLD-TIME IMPRESSIONS

John’s first beautiful botanical cyanotype

In the early days of the competition, all entries were prints or slides; now everything is online and digital, with many outstanding images taken on phones. But it is possible to take photos without a camera, as I discovered from artist Martha Orbach during a break in the judging. She uses a technique called cyanotype, pioneered by one of the first women photographers, Anna Atkins, in the early 1800s. Two harmless chemicals – ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide – are mixed then painted on to a sheet of paper, which is then kept in a lightproof envelope until needed.

Cyanotype is perfect for one-dimensional botanic prints, so Martha showed me how to arrange petals and ferns on the treated paper, cover them with a sheet of glass and leave them in the sunlight for a few minutes. After being dipped into a coldwater ‘fix’, my photo appeared – pale whitish-blue images, some looking like X-rays, against a cyan-blue background. For me, it was another special moment – with not a camera or a lens in sight.

Find out which photo wins the popular vote and which is the judges’ favourite on Countryfile, Sunday, 1 October on BBC One.

• Find out how to buy the Countryfile Calendar 2024 at countryfile.com