Animal Eyes: Photo Contest Finalists

Thank you to all the photographers that shared their photos showing animal eyes in this photo contest with chances to win a Heli Max Drone. The 230Si Quadcopter with HD Camera from Heli-Max is a 230-sized quadcopter that is designed to provide the maneuverability expected from larger 350-size aircraft but in an intermediate form factor that is a step-up from "palm-sized". A big thank you to professional photographer Charles Lupica for his collaboration as a guest judge. Charles is an International award winning photographer, author, and workshop leader. Owner / leader of the Online Photography learning community, 256 Shades of Gray™.

"The selection of the top images for this contest was difficult. There were many outstanding images that had “eyes” as a dominant feature. To me, to quote a worn out saying, “eyes are a mirror to the soul. In a contest featuring eyes the eyes need to be a compelling part of the image. Many of the submissions were excellent animal portraits. Some might have been contenders for an animal portrait contest." - Charles Lupica

Congratulations Grand Jury Winner "Fleya's close up" by LittleFleya

"Liking cats but not being a cat person, I found it difficult to select a pet portrait of a cat as my top pick. But, the eyes of this cat drew me right into the image in a way that few others did. I see the eyes before I see the rest of the cat. The eyes are the subject and the rest of the image is there to support that main element. The black background provides negative space that also helps to focus my attention on the eyes and the cat." - Charles Lupica

Congratulations Runner Up "Lowland Gorilla" by heathermcfw

"The Gorilla image, while not as strong as the cat image, has much the same appeal. The negative space draws you to the image of the gorilla. The light line of the mouth and nose brings you up the photo to the eyes, were you sense a smoldering intelligence." - Charles Lupica

Congratulations Runner Up "IMG_6364a-Patternv2-Digital" by ceridjones

"The eye of the fish (or is it a lizard) is striking by its placement in the square frame. A different framing wouldn’t have been nearly as effective. Roughly speaking, this is a rare example of using the Golden Spiral to give an image a dynamic feeling to it. There are lots of leading lines here and all serve well to draw the viewer to the eye," - Charles Lupica

Congratulations People's Choice "The eye of the Jesus Christ lizard" by abigailshirley

"The lizard eye was initially my favorite but, for a couple of reasons, some of the other images just seemed to “speak” to me more strongly than this eye. The lightness of the negative space in the upper left draws me out of the image, away from the darker area surrounding the eye. Another less apparent “detraction” from this image is the reflection of the photographer in the eye. A little bit of work in Photoshop would have removed this with very little effort. I think this is something we should all be aware of when taking animal portraits, if we close to the animal, there’s a reasonable chance that we’ll be reflected in the eye. It’s something that’s hard to avoid but something we can generally fix in post processing." - Charles Lupica

"Look into my eyes" by anitahogue