Wildlife Photographer of the Year - Young photographers 10 and under
Audio description
Transcript
This is ‘Free as a Bird’ by Alberto Román Gómez from Spain. This photograph was taken near the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, Cádiz, Spain, and is the 2024 category winner of ‘Young Photographers 10 years and under’. To me, this feels quite like it's probably very hot and sunny, sunrise or sunset. You can almost feel the breeze because the bird's feathers are slightly ruffled. The photograph is in a landscape format and the main colour of the background is yellow. A dark sort of yellow. I think it's called burnt ochre or something like that. It’s like a mustard colour at the top and fades towards the bottom of the image. You can see a bird. It's a very small brown bird with lighter coloured speckles on it. Its head is facing to the left, so you can sort of see its beak in profile. It's perched on a metal fence. You can see the three vertical bits of the fence that look like it's made of metal. The fence is mostly dark grey and light grey. It is rusty and there are red yellows and greens on it, which might be bits of paint. The photograph is almost like a grid system on the farthest left of the image there's a chain, a rust-coloured chain. You can't see where it is at the top, but it goes around the top of the widest piece of metal and comes down the other side. Hanging on it is an open padlock, and the bird is looking towards that padlock. The padlock is more of a gold colour with a silver bit where the hook is. You can just about see some reflection of the blue sky in the silver bits of the padlock. It kind of reminds me a bit of a Mondrian picture with the grid lines created by the metal fence. The bird is tiny, about the size of two chain links. I feel like its head could squeeze through the gap in the chain links. Its body is quite round, and it's got tiny stick like legs. The feet are wrapped around the metal of the railings, the bird looks like it's ready to spring into action. I think these birds use these perches to dive down and get their prey because they are a good vantage point in the open landscape of Andalusia. It looks like it's focused on something. Maybe to the left. You almost want to know what it's looking at. It feels like the bird has ownership over that bit of land.