Haydn Mc Clure photographed this Blue-cheeked Bee Eater at iSimangaliso Wetland Park.
One Ashton International pupil is showing huge promise in photography.
Grade 7 pupil Haydn Mc Clure has been doing nature and bird photography for about 18 months, and is a member of Ballito Photo Club, where he has recently been promoted to a two star.
He is also a member of PSSA.
Haydn with his PSSA certificate.
Photographers can apply twice a year to the PSSA for a Certificate of Excellence.
Haydn applied for his COE in September to the PSSA Youth mixed panel, and was awarded the certificate of distinction.
Red-billed Quelea. Photo: Haydn Mc Clure.
His passion lies with bird photography and he is a passionate birder, as are his mom and dad.
His birding life list is on 350 and he has become adept at identifying birds.
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The winning photo of Scenic Utah’s “Off the Beaten Path” category features Ostler Lake in the Uinta Mountains. (Spencer Sullivan)
Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — The Beehive State has long been lauded as a top destination for its outdoor opportunities and surreal natural beauty.
Earlier this month, seven photographs that encapsulate Utah’s best features rose above a field of more than 700 to win the first annual Scenic Utah Photo Contest.
Scenic Utah, a statewide nonprofit advocating for the protection of the state’s scenic resources, launched the contest to celebrate Utah’s “natural beauty, its historic rural character and our unparalleled – and increasingly threatened – scenic vistas and skylines,” a release from the organization said.
The photo contest featured 734 submissions, all gunning for a top spot in one of the seven available photo categories:
Off the Beaten Path
Scenic Night Skies
My Rural Roots
Town, City and State Parks
Visual Pollution We Wish Would Go Away
Community Character
Audience Favorite
“These winning images highlight Utah’s extraordinary scenic resources and the importance of protecting them,” said Ralph Becker, former Salt Lake City mayor and chairman of the board at Scenic Utah.
Below are the winners from each category of the contest.
Off the Beaten Path
This category features pictures from “remote or hard-to-reach places in our beautiful state,” according to Scenic Utah’s website.
“We know and love Delicate Arch, but we’re looking for the lesser known.”
The winning photo of the “Off the Beaten Path” category features Ostler Lake in the Uinta Mountains. (Photo: Spencer Sullivan)
This picture — titled “Ostler Lake” by Spencer Sullivan — is certainly off the beaten path, as Ostler Lake is only accessible by backpacking into the Uintas.
Scenic Night Skies
Scenic Night Skies is the category for “astrophotography of all types,” according to Scenic Utah, which continued, “Long exposures or quick shots of the stars with captivating silhouettes — and everything in between.”
This photo, titled “Magic Bus,” certainly fits the prompt, featuring a breathtaking view of a clear night sky. (Photo: Dave Koch)
One could say that the stars aligned for “Magic Bus,” Dave Koch’s incredible shot of a starry night that many Utahns have come to admire.
My Rural Roots
While Silicon Slopes and the Salt Lake Valley explode, Utahns can still take solace in the more rural, wild parts of the state.
This barn in Newton, Cache County, certainly captures the rural spirit of the state. (Photo: Hans Christian Ettengruber)
Hans Christian Ettengruber perfectly captured the essence of the rural category in “Barn with Yellow Flowers,” which could make the most seasoned city-dweller daydream about spending a day in the yellow meadows surrounding the barn.
Town, City and State Parks
This category takes us all the way down to Sand Hollow State Park in Washington County, just north of the Arizona border.
This image shows a beautiful rainbow over Sand Hollow Reservoir in Washington County. (Photo: Nathan Hanson)
Nathan Hansons’s shot, “Rainbow in Sand Hollow,” also paints a picture of how quickly the weather can change in the desert.
Visual Pollution We Wish Would Go Away
With the rapidly growing nature of the state, this category pays homage to the visual impediments that Utahns are seeing more of these days.
This image shows power lines in the foreground, obscuring the view of mountains in the background. (Photo: Steve Wise)
“High Power Interference,” by Steve Wise, perfectly depicts the juxtaposition of Utah’s development industry and scenic beauty.
Community Character
From Cache Valley to the red desert of southern Utah, the Beehive State is full of communities overflowing with character.
This image of a sign that says “Westside” won the Community Character category of the photo contest. (Photo: Kirk Anderson)
Kirk Anderson’s “Westside Sign” looks like something out of an old western movie and creatively showcases the character found throughout Utah.
Audience Favorite
Of course, the people of Utah should also have a say in what they deem their favorite photograph.
When it came down to it, Utahns decided on Shauna Hart’s “The Boys are Back.”
“The Boys are Back” shows bison roaming the grounds of Antelope Island. (Photo: Shauna Hart)
The dramatic image showcases the wild nature of the state that is admired by so many.
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Logan Stefanich is a reporter with KSL.com, covering southern Utah communities, education, business and military news.
Bruce Presents Astrophotography – Virtual Zoom Webinar
The night sky has long held us captive with its beauty and wonders, only to disappear with the coming of the sun. But photography, beginning with the first pictures of the Moon in the 1800s, has enabled us to see into the dark reaches of space, capturing a moment that can be shared anytime. Advances in photographic technologies have given way to Astrophotography, the imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky. Modern Astrophotography is not only dazzling to behold, but also provides important data and research support on objects invisible to the human eye such as dim stars, nebulae, or galaxies.
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Carina Nebula, photo by NASA’s James Webb Telescope
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