Clouds

This great and dramatic cloud image over the little port is really superbly composed and photographed. The photographer has shown great skill in giving 2/3rds proportion to the sky to emphasise its scale and dominance over the port. The wide-angle lens has helped to enhance that feeling of being drawn into the middle of the frame, which is supported by the shafts of sunlight that spray out over the horizon. The exposure and processing has been kept simple without the need to make the clouds scream out any more than they do naturally. The light and tone give real mood to the shot that is calm, but dramatic. Well done - great shot and worthy 4th spot in the competition.

This is a great image and I love the simplicity of it. It would have faired better if the processing was a little less contrasty and obvious. For me the beauty of these types of shots is allowing them to remain natural - meaning keeping the colour, tonal range, contrast as they were and, most importantly, not sharpening. This image has the hallmarks of a good eye and is well captured, so a little more sensitive processing would really be the icing on the cake. Well done on seeing this and keeping the composition simple and effective.

This is a really well composed scene showing that the photographer has proportioned the image with care and understanding. The majority of the frame is filled with sky, yet we get a sense of occasion with the sailing boats dwarfed under it. This image is simple in composition and in colour and works really well for me. The thing that slightly lets it down is the lack of contrast (shadows and mid-tones). It has a slightly washed out tonal range which, when considering the bright highlights on the sea, suggests that levels have been pushed too far in post-processing. Notwithstanding this - it is a great image and well constructed.

This image grabbed my attention immediately. So many of the images submitted to this competition seem to lean towards the dramatic, but are generally processed in such a way that the processing, over-sharpening, over-saturation, and general pixel-punishing distracted from the natural beauty of the skies/scenes being portrayed. This image is a worthy 2nd place and was a whisker away from the 1st for me. It has been composed beautifully, allowing the sky, the tones and the clouds to hold the attention whilst balancing the exposure perfectly to give us this wonderful peaceful landscape below it. Full marks to the photographer for carefully blending exposures to cover a wide dynamic range of light and set the mood in this sunrise image with those graceful clouds, rich in light and shape.

As soon as I saw this image it struck a chord with me and had an impact. Not because it was a typical sunset or sunrise rich in colour and drama, but purely for its simplicity. It takes real skill and a good eye to spot the simplicity to make a compelling photo. The photographer has used the vertical lines of the building to add real strength to the composition. The placement of the two panels gives the image geometry, and the reflection of the sky and clouds above is perfect.

This is beautifully and sensitively composed - the cloud dominates the scene, but is positioned perfectly to one side of the frame and is well balanced by the mountain on the right. The photographer has demonstrated good camera technique and exposed the scene perfectly without feeling the need to do any more in post-processing. The natural presentation of colour, tone and detail really make this a superb image. The unusual UFO-shaped cloud is of course the reason for the photo and the South American landscape beneath is perfect to represent that outer space visitor to planet earth. An outstanding shot and worthy winner.

A stunning image rich in colour and contrast set in a beautiful South American landscape. The photographer has balanced the composition well and set off the clouds against this mountainous landscape. The snow/ice-capped mountains contrast nicely with the warm sky that give the image a magical feel. This scene covers a large dynamic range of light, which is often difficult to expose perfectly. The shadows at the base of the mountains are a little dark, but they do not over-detract from the overall image quality and wonderful natural vista. Well done, superb image.

A wonderful sunset scene of Brighton Pier - the composition is wonderful with 90% of the frame featuring the sky and the clouds. The eye is taken from the rich hot tones on the horizon all they way up through a spectrum of contrast from hard to soft as the light is diffused higher up the frame. What is especially pleasing to see is that the photographer has resisted the temptation to make it more dramatic with post-production editing. Too many images, in my view, are pushed beyond the pale, but this image is sensitive to the mood and light, and is stronger for it by being left natural. Well done.

A superb scape of sky and shoreline. I really enjoy how the breaking waves have been exposed in this. The slight slowing down of shutter speed gives them a softer feeling so that the eye doesn't get overly distracted from the wonderful skyline. The wide-angle perspective really enhances the pull from left to right in the image as does the shift from blue cold tones to warm orange tones, left to right. The processing is minimal, though there are some slight signs of overdoing it far right along the ridge of the cliff. This is a great image full of punch and colour. Well done.

I love this image - more for the situation than cloud per say. This was taken at 6km above sea level as what you see is pretty much above the cloud. Altitude and breathing can be a real challenge. Seeing this group playing volleyball at this altitude tells us a story - one of the essentials of photography in my view. The photographer has shot a great scene with an amazing backdrop that works well with the narrative and composition. My slight critique would be to suggest that the shadow tones have been pushed a bit far - the edge of trees on the right start to look a little to light against that cloud and have over-sharpened edges. Nevertheless, this is a great image with a great narrative. Well done.

I really need to get to Yorkshire more if you can get these UFO clouds on a predictable basis. This image works for me because of the simple composition that shows consideration for proportions, subject and supporting cast. The wonderful UFO-shaped cloud gives a sense of dominance and almost suction effect over the wind farm. Outer space meets UK wind farm - the shift in cold to warm tone really helps to emphasise the two planes of interest where the extraterrestrial hovers over the terrestrial. Great image.

This image shows some real potential - it's well crafted from compositional perspective with the sweep of the shoreline and clever use of reflections of clouds on the wet sand. The main issue though is that light tones (sky) and dark tones (tree line) are over- and under-exposed so we have no detail in these two areas. This creates a very high contrast scene where our eyes wrestle with where to look and rest. These types of lighting require bracketed exposures to capture the dynamic range of light.

'Wow' is what sprung to mind - the photographer has certainly made a dramatic shot and captured some amazing storm clouds. However, the reason this image loses impact quickly is that the tones don't feel natural. The areas of the sky that look unnaturally dark (on the left, for example) and almost black, whether the photographer used Graduated Neutral Density Filters or this is the result of post-production. It's important to try and keep the lighting ratio between light and dark intact, otherwise the post-processing becomes the focal point instead of that wonderful storm cloud.

This is photo from an iconic location and the photographer has composed the image in a well-balanced way. However the treatment in post-production has not worked for me. This is a personal view of course, but I would like to suggest that when processing is taken this far and shows so many distracting elements - sharpened clouds, no difference between shadow, mid-tone and highlights, over-polarised skies - ask yourself: do these things enhance or detract from what is otherwise a great composition at a great location with a great sky to support it? For me this image would have been a cracker if it hadn't been processed this way.