Amateur Photographer Magazine

Another challenging round, and more imaginations stretched. I knew this would be a difficult one as most of us shoot things other than other humans, and the theme asked for a greater degree of interpretation than usual – but you know, we’ve had some excellent entries

One of the wonderful things about this forum competition (for which I can claim no credit at all) is that it is so open. Everyone that enters gets his or her picture shown, and the whole world can pop by to take a look and leave a comment. Although there is a prize involved there should be less pressure, as we all know that we can have a go and still succeed in getting published.

I’ve really enjoyed judging this round, as there is such a wide range of images – from street scenes to still life, and all meet the brief very well. The short list is filled with top class pictures, and its great to have an injection of humour too.

From that shortlist some of the shots that stood out for me include those from 4biker2, TFC, Siuya and APChris.

Just to remind you of the prizes: the first placed image wins a wonderful Nikon Coolpix S210 compact camera – kindly donated by Nikon UK, and second and third placed pictures win a highly coveted ‘AP Loves My Pictures’ mug.

So on to the winners:

3rd place: Jonopye

The third prize this month goes to Jonopye for this really sculptural image. The shape of the rib cage against the muscle of the stomach is nicely accentuated by the side-on lighting, while is enough fill to restrain contrast to create an over all soft image. The belly button is brilliantly lit, making it really stand out as a 3D object. A very successful shot.

2nd place: Dave_Cox

Dave_Cox’s hand takes our second prize this month. Nicely toned and dramatically lit this palm looks like the road-map of life. Whether you believe in palm readings or not the association is there, and in one shot Dave shows what we look like and where we are going – the skin showing the story of life past, present and future. The deep blacks in the lines suggest a life of hard graft – so we can assume its not his own!

1st place: NorthernNikon

You can see that the short list this month is filled with excellence, but I’m sure you’ll agree too that there is one picture that stretches out ahead of the rest. It stands on blocks to be taller than all around it, and those blocks are made from originality, humour, great composition, perfect lighting and well chosen colours.

NorthernNikon’s Leon and Percy is simply brilliant. The idea fits the brief perfectly and the execution could not have been better. The positioning of the skeleton and the expression of Leon (I’m guessing he’s the live one) tell a fascinating story about their relationship – they say opposites attract!

The soft light shows what we want to see and the green wall and ruby Chesterfield provide a traditional background for this unconventional couple that somehow normalises this shocking combination of flesh and blood with bone. I could go on for ages…but it is enough to say that this really is a worthy winner.

Conclusion:

I know it takes me a long time to get around to writing up and posting the results, but judging this competition is one of the highlights of my month. I love the variety that is produced and the democracy of voting and chat in the comments thread. The pictures are so much fun, so well done and really enjoyable to look at. I encourage everyone to take part in this competition, as even if you think you can’t win the act of joining in and becoming a part-of will give you a new connection with your photography and will make it easier to learn from the winners.

I’d like to thank Gemma Padley, from our features department, for helping me judge this month. We chose the same pictures for the same reasons.

Thanks very much to all those that entered. And to those that thought about it make sure you get your pictures in for the current competition.

Damien Demolder