A Building in the Mountains

Congratulations for this image, my favourite of the black and white submissions to this "a building in the mountains" contest. The location is dramatic and spectacular and I like the chosen composition with both the shape and the structure of the rocks making leading lines towards the central monastery. Black and white appears to be a good choice for this scene, the eye is drawn first to the monastery as the brightest part of the picture and the lack of colour puts additional focus on the shapes and textures of the remarkable rock formations. The black and white conversion is a very dramatic and high-contrast one which I think overall compliments the scene very well, but it also introduces some slight halos around the mountains. I think I would have ranked this image even higher with a slightly different framing - the mountains in the background are chopped off at the very top which has a bit of an accidental feeling to it. Overall this is a very strong image and I was happy to see it in my contest. Well done.

Congratulations for this peaceful and beautiful scene, a great fit for my "a building in the mountains" contest. The golden evening light is very attractive and provides a nice colour compliment to the blue sky. The processing of the image has been done with a light touch and I feel like I am looking at the scene as it may well have looked at the time rather than a fantasy creation which was invented afterwards in the computer. Well done and thank you for entering my contest.

Congratulations for this image! You were one of only two people in this contest to interpret the theme in this way, showing the building from the inside rather then the outside. Showing creativity in thinking as well as in producing the image is often a good way to catch the attention of the judge. The light is well handled in this image, it can be a challenge to shoot this kind of scene where there is a large variance in the dynamic range between the inside and the outside. Often such images end up with a very unnatural feeling to them due to excessive brightening of the shadows and excessive darkening of the highlights but here you have succeeded very well in keeping the image looking more natural. Well done.

Congratulations for this striking panoramic image which i was drawn to for a number of reasons when judging my "a building in the mountains" contest. This image prefectly shows off both the alpine terrain and the ways that mankind has found to take advantage of it. The fundamental structure of the image, with 98% of the frame being either blue or white is pleasingly simple but in no way boring due to the fantastic patterns that the human creatures have (accidentally) managed to make in the snow. The exposure of the scene is very well handled, shooting snow can be very difficult but you have done it perfectly with no blown out areas and a great deal of detail in the surface of the snow. Another thing that I very much like in this image is that you chose a panoramic format rather than including more sky or a less wide view trying to fit into a 3:2 image. I often see scenes where the content does not seem to fit very well with the chosen shape of the final image but here I think that there is a perfect match. There was one thing that stopped me from putting this image to my top ten, or even to the winning position and that was that I did not feel the image was level. It is hard to be 100% sure in the absence of a horizon but the great majority of the vertical elements in the scene (such as the walls of the building and the supports for the chair lift) are leaning noticeably to the left. Thank you for entering my contest, and well done.