Amateur Photographer monthly forum competition results for November 2008

Dear all

The evidence of your combined excellence once more overwhelms me! I jest not. You have risen to a challenge that was not especially easy, and you have produced a really wide variety of images that both fit the theme (well mostly!) and simulate eye and brain together. You are a clever bunch. If I was faced with the theme of ‘Just One Colour’ I would probably have shot a still life – being a control freak – so it was great to see landscapes, nature and all sorts in this month’s entry box.

You may notice that I seem to have judged this month’s competition rather sooner than usual. You can thank Hotblack for that. I saw him at the Landscape Photographer of the Year winners’ exhibition, (where he was showing a rather nice landscape – well done), and rather stupidly told him that after being so late recently I intended to judge the November round as soon as it closed. It’s been bothering me since 00.01 on 1st December!



Our generous friends at Nikon have introduced a new camera to replace the delightful S210 that we have been awarding our winners. The new camera becomes the top prize from this month. The camera is the 10MP Nikon Coolpix S560. Nikon says it has the world’s most compact design, so you’ll need to be careful you don’t loose it down the back of the sofa. It also has a 35-117mm zoom lens, sensor VR, a maximum full-resolution ISO of 2000 and 2.7in LCD. It also incorporates Nikon’s new food-mode!

As you’d expect, the AP mugs have a shelf life longer than any camera, so these prizes for 2nd and 3rd places remain the same.



Our shortlist extends to 21 this month, and even to get it that short required a degree of meanness on my part. The special mentions list was going to be a long one too, but I’ll restrict it to FujiSigmaNolta’s Moth (get a shorter name if you expect to be mentioned again :)), AJUK’s So Real?, SmokeJaguar’s Lamp, Northerner’s Blue Plane and f0f0fan’s The Cat’s Whiskers II.

So on to the winners.

Third prize: geoffL, for Inverary Blue



We had a lot of blue pictures (no, not that sort) this month that really stood out from the crowd. Blue is a popular colour, of course, but somehow seeing them all together here made me realise what a successful colour it is for photography. GeoffL’s use for blue here is excellent, and it conveys so well the cool of the pre-sunrise morning. His careful metering has ensured we have plenty of detail to look at, and the shades and tones define the layers of the hills in the distance. That little splash of pink in the buoy jumps out from its background, and grabs our attention.

Second prize: Zou, for Midori



Whether Zou means Midori the slightly sickly melon flavoured liquor, the Japanese word for ‘green’ or Midori the popular Japanese girl’s name, hardly matters here. What I see is an interesting combination of shapes, detail, undemanding softness, tones and a well-chosen colour. I suspect this shot won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I’d urge anyone to take a few seconds to consider why Zou shot and submitted it. I find it both interesting and relaxing.

First Prize: Lisadb, for First Light



I’m not usually a great fan of foaming water, because it is usually presented as the subject of a picture rather than a feature. Here, in Lisadb’s early morning view, the movement around the rocks and the channel between them serves more to remind me that in low light we see things less clearly with less well defined detail. I like the way the composition curls the path the eye takes from the foreground to the splash of peach in the sky, and the dark solidity of rocks that never move no matter how powerful the sea becomes. The blue of the morning comes across beautifully, and captures enough information for me to be able to transport myself there for a few moments. It’s a lovely shot and well deserving of the first prize in this very tough round.

Thanks to everyone for entering this month. It's been another really inspiring round. I'm looking forward to seeing all the December pictures at the end of the month - there are already some top class entries.

Look out for our Christmas issue (on sale 16 December) as we have a gallery of the year's winning forum pictures.

Click the links to see all the Amateur Photographer forum photographic competition entries for November and here to read the November forum photographic competition discussion thread

This is where you'll find all the rest of the year's Amateur Photographer forum photographic competitions and discussion threads.