The photograph of the month for September 2019 is of Emperor Penguin chicks and comes from my last visit to Gould Bay in Antarctica in November of 2018. This photograph and print scored a Gold award at the 2019 Epson Victorian AIPP State awards and a Silver with Distinction at the 2019 APPA National Awards. It was also part of my winning portfolio for Nature Photographer of the Year at the 2019 Victorian State Awards. I used a 400mm f2.8L IS MKII lens to compress the distance between the small creche of penguin chicks and played with a number of different f-stops to achieve the depth of field effect I was after. The intention was to have the distant colony of penguins soft but still distinctly obvious as penguins. I lay down as low as I could on the ice in order to maintain eye level contact with the penguin chicks and to maintain as much intimacy as possible in the photograph. You can watch the print being judged in the video below.
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