Local Photog Cleans Up at Competition

This is the second year Syosset photographer Marty Silverstein has cleaned up at the Photographic Federation of Long Island Leonard Victor Competition, held at the on Friday.

Silverstein took first and second place in two categories in the annual competition in which judges select the best black and white, color, and digital photos from photographers in camera clubs throughout Long Island, Queens, and the Bronx.

Silverstein exclamed that it's a veritable miracle to win in a group of people with such skills and knowledge, and joked that he doesn't take good will for granted.

"They have a contract on me," he laughed. "I have to run to my car."

Silverstein took first place in Color Category A for "Hawk Talk," a closeup shot of a screeching raptor, and took second place in Black and White Category B for "Squabbling Skimmers," a shot of two competing Skimmers' mid-air acrobatics.

Judge Phil Echo explained what the judging panel looks for in a first place photograph: "The first thing is composition, how all of the elements line up in relation to each other; we look for exposure, the whole tonal range from the bright areas to the dark areas; we look for things like color cast; and we look for the story or intent of the image and technical difficulty.”  

"Hawk Talk" had all the elements the judges were looking for including technical difficulty, but Silverstein said there was nothing difficult about getting the shot. The bird in "Hawk Talk" was actually a captive bird held by a raptor rescue group at Cedar Creek Park in Wantagh. Using captive wild animals is a common strategy that Silverstein employs to avoid the rigors associated with traditional wildlife photography. 

“You don’t have to go in the wild to take stuff like that,” he said.

Silverstein used a Canon D-Body with a 100-400 mm lens for "Hawk Talk." For his second place piece in the black and white category B called "Squabbling Skimmers," he used a 500 mm lens to capture two skimmers in perfect aerial symetry at Nickerson Beach Park, where they arrive yearly to breed on the beach in the hundreds.

"They have a habit when they’re nesting of going up in the air and squabbling for territory or a piece of fish. If you’re prepared for that, you just aim your camera up in the sky and hope you can get them to focus and do something interesting."

Silverstein has been practicing his art since he was nine years old in Brownsville, Brooklyn where he started off shooting and developing photos for livery drivers at his father's auto shop. He's been seriously invovled in photography for 35 years, nearly the life of the Photographic Federation of Long Island, and is currently a member of the Syosset Camera Club.