Dear Forum members
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I can’t decide whether street photography is easy or difficult. On the one hand all you have to do is point the camera while the public, architects, the weather and good fortune do all the work. On the other hand you have to wait around and spot the potential in the first place.
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Street photography is one of my favourite areas mainly because of the rush it gives me. With no control of the moving elements that come together to make the picture possible I feel like a hunter out gathering, working out where the game will appear and anticipating the moment the target will enter my sights. I do get excited, and it can be tremendously rewarding, but as we all know coming home with nothing in the bag is not an unknown experience to most street photographers. I know I have to be in the right mood and creatively receptive.
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This month’s competition has produced some really excellent entries and I’ve really enjoyed looking at them all. There’s quite a wide range of ideas of what street photography is about, some more static and some in motion, and I really like that.
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The short list ran to 15 this month, but from there it was quite hard to whittle the finalists out. I think special mentions are due to Fred_Bear for ‘Blues and Royals’, OneTen for ‘Beware of the Dog’, and Ephemeral for his ‘In the warm and dry’. I can think of a few good reasons to mention Scphoto’s ‘Tory Conference’ too, but they are less to do with the photographic skills involved!
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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.
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So on to the winners:
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3rd place: Northern Nikon
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Third place this month goes to Northern Nikon for his enchanting ‘The new curiosity shop’. I love the crop that suggests a movie scene, and the light from the window has been carefully (or luckily) measured to illuminate the subject perfectly. The composition that places him over that right hand third balances the frame really well, and the warmth of the tungsten picks him out further against the cool evening shade.
This shot might have moved up the rankings a little if there had been a touch more contrast between the man and the street scene. There is just a bit too much detail as the evening was still lighter than ideal. I also suspect that the narrow depth of field is less to do with f/1.4 than it is to do with a rather too even application of Gaussian blur in Elements. That doesn’t matter very much at all though, as even as it stands it’s an excellent shot.
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2nd place: PCP
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Second place goes to a new comer from India – PCP with ‘Big Wheel’. In any other month this would be a clear winner, with the dramatic composition and the split second timing that has gone into capturing the shadow in the streak of light across the road. I wonder if this was the first frame PCP took of this scene, or if he noticed the effect with another cyclist and waited for a repeat performance with his camera to his eye. Either way he has created a classic shot – even the direction the rider is looking in adds to the strength of the image. I think it’s a great shot.
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1st place: dee_gee
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The winner this month has captured a moment that has in turn really captured my attention. Looking at this shot I know exactly where I am. I get that feeling of sitting inside a café waiting for the rain to stop. I’m in that slightly knackered state that you get when you’ve been walking around all day, and you are just staring into space chilling out and taking in what’s going on around you. Looking out the window that’s what I would see. Dee_gee’s ‘Easy like a New York Sunday morning’ is one of those pictures that transports you back to where it was taken. I don’t just sit and look as an observer, I enter the scene and become part of it. The colours are perfect for New York and they really help to build the atmosphere.
I asked you to show me what it is like to live where you live – and dee_gee has done just that. Well done.
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Conclusion:</p>
Thanks again to everyone that entered and to everyone that took part in the comments thread. I think the support you give to each other during these competitions is brilliant, and I’m certain it is more than half the reason many of you enter.
Well done.
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Damien Demolder</p>
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They were my favourites 
