Christmas cover star!

This is a beautiful image, exquisitely styled and executed. A young girl holds a delicate, fragile bird in her hands. Did she rescue it? Is she releasing it or offering warmth and protection? Either way it’s an unashamedly sentimental image carrying a message of love, trust, hope and caring – qualities that Christmas is synonymous with, and the perfect antidote to the hate-filled year that 2016 will surely come to be remembered for.

Technically this image has been expertly crafted. The equipment may be simple: a 50mm standard lens on an inexpensive DSLR, but it has been used with great skill. Shooting wide open at f/1.8 draws the viewers’ attention to the girl’s face, and renders the falling snow as a blur, while the soft, shadowless lighting and limited, pastel colour palette perfectly complement the narrative. Most importantly the photographer composed the shot with a cover in mind: portrait format, with space above for the masthead and space around the girl for coverlines.

Robins in the snow – hardly an original subject for Christmas-themed photography, but this is a great example of a very popular kind of image. The bird is perfectly placed within the frame, and careful selective focussing means its eyes in particular are pin sharp. Carefully focussing on the bird also blurs out the snowflakes, adding to the atmosphere. There's just enough ground being shown to add context and foreground interest, too. This image is beautifully edited , with colours that are vibrant and attractive without appearing unnatural or garish. Finally, a subtle vignette focusses attention on the iconic winter bird. A classic subject, beautifully executed. As a cover image submission, however, it isn’t quite so successful, being shot in landscape format and framed so tightly as to make a vertical 3:2 ratio crop impossible.

What are some of the things we associate with Christmas? A warm fire, presents under the tree, a nice alcoholic beverage that places a warm glow in your belly. If you’re the more traditional sort, the kind that really enjoys the magical folkloric appeal of the Yuletide season then you’ll undoubtedly think of Santa’s reindeer. Top marks if you can name all of them. This image of a herd of reindeer shot during the Reindeer migration in Randsverk, Norway is not only a great Christmas image but also a beautiful example of wildlife photography. Having many of the reindeers looking right at the camera gives us a connection with the subjects and takes us right in to their wintery world. It’s also nice to see some environmental context – diffused by snowfall – with the trees in background and ample use of near negative space in the top half. All in all, this is a shot that evokes the magic of Christmas. As a cover image the landscape format is a disadvantage (though a portrait format crop could have been made) but it was the fact that its a little soft and lacked the punch we were looking for in the cover image.

The mist, the warm back-lighting, the frosty ground, the autumnal colours…there was a lovely landscape photo to be had here but sadly this isn’t it. The problem is the photographer’s choice of viewpoint. We can see how they have tried to create a natural frame, which was good, and hey have chosen to shoot into the sunlight, which was also an excellent choice. Technically the foreground is not as sharp as we would hope for in a prize winning landscape – a smaller aperture, a closer focus point and probably a tripod would have helped here – but the biggest problem, and the one which ultimately led to its rejection, is that annoying and distracting out-of-focus branch and leaves in the upper right hand quarter of the frame. It just keeps drawing the eye away from the rest of image, which is lovely.

When it comes to Christmas photo competitions you get a lot of entrants supplying images of seasonal decorations with festive lights behind them, shot at a wide aperture or with a long lens so the lights are totally blurred out. To get this 'bokeh' effect right is not as easy as it sounds, however, and not all background blur is created equal. The photographer here has really pulled it off, with pleasing circular shapes on the lights, nicely arranged around the candle. The candle wick area is sharp and the flame not excessively blown out, so this is a good technical effort. Meanwhile the stark black background really helps to focus attention on the candle and lights, proving once again that less is more.

This time we find a stunning image of a tree in Norway cocooned in lights. It’s an image of real atmosphere that brings to mind those nights as a child on Christmas Eve unable to sleep and peering out of the window to see the garden blanketed in pure white snow. Here that idea is taken to a fabricated extreme and works all the more for it. It’s like a beautiful glowing frost has seized hold of the tree and is reflecting the spread of starlight above. It’s a lovely image and while not explicitly Christmassy still manages to evoke the magical feeling of that time.

Many people would say this is a perfectly good landscape image and it does tick a lot of boxes, but there are a few 'issues' that stop it from being a great image. First, the subject is way too tight in the frame (whether it was cropped in camera or with software). While it's good to make the imposing peak the dominant subject in this portrait format, the peak is not given enough breathing space and ends up feeling cramped. More sky would have provided more breathing space, better evoked the spectacular vista in front of the photographer, and balanced out the image better. It's a shame, as the foreground is nicely composed, with the lines of the water leading in the eye. The very cold colour temperature is certainly suited to the subject and time of shooting, but it could be warmed up a bit – the image looks at first glance to have a rather unnatural blue tint. In terms of sharpness and detail, the image is spot on, though.

Of all the many landscape images submitted this was our favourite. We see lots of images of the aurora borealis, but rarely do we see one with such an stunning foreground. The long night exposure has captured lots of colour and detail in the sky and the photographers’ choice of a symmetrical composition has worked well. Plenty of space has also been left for both the masthead and coverlines. Why was this not chosen? Well while it’s a perfect illustration of a winter landscape, and would be ideal for any of our winter covers, it doesn’t really say ‘Christmas’.

As well as being an amusing and cute image, this a technically accomplished one. The colours are rich and vibrant, and the photographer has correctly exposed for the snow. It's neither an underexposed blue/grey mass, or a blown-out, overexposed dazzle. The limited depth of field is expertly controlled too, focussing the viewer's attention on the subject. Persuading this rather officious-looking cat to sit still in the sledge was also quite an achievement, as was keeping its eyes sharp. The composition is spot on, with the trees in the top right corner enhancing the vignette. Some purists may have cleaned up the snow on the sledge, but it adds to the wondrous winter atmosphere.

Christmas is a time for getting together with the family and falling out over a good old-fashioned board game. In many houses up and down the land Christmas TV-watching has almost all but replaced the tradition of sitting down over a good game, so this image is a nice reminder of something we could all do with getting back to. The use of the Scrabble pieces to spell out a Christmas message is not only a clever idea but also a heart-warming one. In the background we find a glowing spread of Christmas lights thrown out of focus using an aperture of f/2.2 to create a blanket of dazzling bokeh. It’s a technique that serves to draw our attention to the foreground message and results in an ample level of background interest. Top marks for the idea, though a couple of marks off the execution for being not quite as crisp and sharp as we'd need it to be for the cover.

Of all the still life images submitted this one caught our eye. It’s a simple composition, taken using a compact camera, with good use of contrasting colours. Whether the photographer arranged it like this or simply found it makes no difference to the overall impact. Technically it’s great too – you can see every crystal of frost. While some post production work is evident it never overwhelms or spoils the subject – the burning in of the surrounding foliage helps focus the eye on the details. The only black mark against it is that, for a cover composition it wound have been better shot in portrait format. Luckily it would have been easy to extend the black background, but it’s something to bear in mind.

This image has many of the ingredients required for a good portrait: a pretty girl in a nice costume in a sympathetic setting. Considering all the white tones in the image the photographer has got the exposure bang on, and neither the focus or composition can be faulted. There’s just one thing that lets it down, but sadly it’s the most important element of all: the girl’s expression. She looks like she has been captured mid sentence and, combined with her posture and slightly off-camera gaze, if we had to guess what she was saying it would be “I’ve had enough of this now, can I get down?” Was it a single grab shot? We don’t know, but striking a rapport with a subject, and getting them to look relaxed and natural are the very most important elements of portraiture, Ideally the photographer would have spent a few minutes engaging with the subject and then taken a series of images to increase the chances of getting one with the perfect pose and expression.

Sometimes it pays to keep things simple, and this shot has a refreshing Zen-like quality to it. It’s a good idea to keep a mental note of photogenic locations close to home – that way you know where to go when Mother Nature works her magic and a dusting of snow arrives. The photographer has managed the exposure well, and removed anything that doesn’t contribute to the story via careful framing. It’s a great shot, but one that shouts winter more than Christmas.

This is a great example of light painting – a fun technique that’s perfect for this time of the year when the days are much shorter. It’s nice to see a variety of colours captured in the long exposure, which I believe was created using LED lights. The photographer has shot in portrait format, and left plenty of space in the composition for the masthead and cover lines, but the picture feels a little too one-dimensional to retain the viewer’s interest for long.

A dog in the snow – these are all the ingredients you need for a potentially great photo (though whether it says Christmas is another matter). But the photographer has not gone to very much effort here to make one. The owner of the dog probably thinks is a good record of their pet, but to be of interest to anyone else it needs to be either doing something interesting or be photographed in an interesting way – neither of which is the case here. It would have helped hugely if the photographer had crouched down to the dog’s level, instead of shooting down from head height. Perhaps from the front, so we could have eye contact, and with a composition that didn’t chop off the dog’s tail. Technically it’s a little underexposed too – the snow is verging on grey, and the dogs eyes and nose are just solid black discs. A small blip of fill flash could have added a nice catchlight.

This image leaves s somewhat perplexed. Just what is going on here? The photographer has brought together several elements – the girl, the santa hat, and the suitcase – with the aim, we presume, of telling some kind of story. There’s clearly a narrative at play here, we just can’t figure it out. Is she santa? Why the suitcase? Is she running away from home or just going on holiday? Why does she look so bored? Is her flight delayed? Reading the image title confuses us further: “Little bad lazy santa.” Well she’s clearly little, but why is she bad? Because she’s packed her suitcase? And why lazy? This is a technically competent image, it’s the clarity of thought that’s missing here. Without any idea – or one that makes any sense – of what the photographer is trying to say I’m afraid this just leaves us scratching our heads.

"This is a pleasant enough composition, with the road leading us nicely to what we presume is either a sunrise, or a nuclear detonation. We can't quite figure out why it's so blue, and why it is so blurry, especially considering it was shot on a Leica – one of the most expensive cameras you can buy, partly on account of its exceptional image quality.

Perhaps the author enjoys creating very abstract, impressionistic art in Photoshop (or their alternative photo-editing weapon of choice). Which is fine, but sadly this isn't our cup of tea, and it doesn't say a lot about Christmas either."

This image had us in fits of laughter, and came to be referred to as the 'Catholic Penguin', or ‘Martin Parr does Christmas’. The photographer was alert enough to see the humour in this situation, and has created a clean, simple composition that immediately tells the story. This is a very publishable image, though not for the AP Christmas issue cover, due to its complete lack of any feeling of the Christmas spirit that we were looking for. If it had been a humorous nature photos contest, however, it would have been a tough entry to beat.