Damaged landscapes

I have selected this image as my overall winner. For me this shot is very simple in its subject and composition, yet very powerful and metaphoric. You have the dramatic cracked earth throughout the frame, giving a sense of a barren, dead landscape, with footprints leading from the middle out toward the upper right corner. This teamed with the stretched shadow looming over the land as if to suggest that perhaps somehow humans are responsible for this dry and damaged landscape.

This is very dramatic image indeed – straight away you are struck by the colour of the water in the foreground which seems poisonous or toxic and the floating debris. As you move through the frame you notice the reflections of the mountain side which then draw you in toward the church in the center of the frame. Only the roof and steeple of the church are visible above the water line, giving you a good sense of the scale of the flooding in the area and the devastation it will have caused to the local population and wildlife throughout it.

I really like this image a lot, as immediately you are presented with a scene of what looks to be total destruction of a forest area. The pile of bark and logs in the left hand corner leads your eye up into the middle of the frame where a large digger looks to be moving the logs while a single figure stands watching. There are also some great tones and textures in the logs and stripped bark scattering the floor in the foreground.

I really like this image but I do feel it fell just a little short because of the amount of movement within the foreground and the lack of separation between it and the subject. I think it could have been much better had the photographer perhaps moved the frame up to exclude more of the foreground or by cropping into the image itself to achieve the same result. I also feel the tones are very similar throughout the image and perhaps a little dodging and burning of the stacks might have helped to separate them more from the clouds and foreground. Overall though, a great effort!

This image has the makings of a very interesting scene with the path to the right of the frame leading in toward shanty-like buildings and a small child down at the water's edge. I also like the reflections that have formed in that pool of water. However there is also a lot of things that distract from the scene, such as the palm trees over head, the shadowed area in the foreground and the half obscured palm tree at the left edge of the frame. I think the photographer should have considered perhaps getting a little closer to the scene, which might mean you need to go a little wider with your lens but use the lines that are already there to draw the eye toward your main subject and really allow the viewer to focus on what you are trying to show them.

I really liked this shot and think it has a lot of potential. However due to the messy foreground and the amount of people in the frame I found myself focusing on the people instead of the scene, especially on the woman in the bottom left of the frame. You could of course crop the image at the bottom. However I think to take the interest away from all the people in this scene, you would have to slow down the shutter speed blurring the movement of everyone in the frame. However on a day like this I think you'd need to be using ND filters to achieve those results. I think a speed of anywhere between 1 to 10 seconds would really change the scene and put an emphasis on time, which is ultimately the cause of the damage in this scene.

This is a very striking image and I really do like it a lot. The photographer has placed the (rising or setting) sun behind what appears to be some sort of oil or water pump, which has created a fantastic halo around the center of the image and at the same time throwing the subjects into silhouette. You get a real sense of the power and heat of the location, and with the misty-like haze across the ground the location feels possibly barren and desert like.

Here you have a very dramatic photo taken with what appears to be a telephoto lens, which has compressed the subject, giving the scene a true sense of scale and perspective. Even though not much of the natural landscape is visible, you get a real feel of the damage that is being done to the environment, with huge plumes of smoke jutting out from several giant towers and the black and white processing adding to the stark industrial feel of the image.

Looking at this image you really get a sense of the sheer size of the power plant and its dominance over the land. You can see large trees at the edge of the field that are just dwarfed by the size of the building and its stacks. I really like the fact that the photographer hasn't tried to correct the colour cast in this long exposure, leaving the image feeling very desaturated as if the power plant were somehow stripping away at the lush green landscape that once was. The use of a vignette really pushes the eye toward the centre. I also like that the smoke from the stacks has blended in with the movement of the clouds, showing a continual cycle of pollution as it's swept up into the clouds above.

I think this was a good image in terms of composition and perspective, while the feel of the image is in my opinion a little over processed and over saturated. There are also two dust spots in the top right corner that have been made more prominent by this type of processing, which can be quite distracting to the viewer. The horizon needs a slight adjustment, however I love the relationship between the digger and the landscape, especially as it's during sunset – one of the most beautiful times of day. It's definitely a great shame that the photographer for whatever reason has cut of the arm of the digger from the frame. Had it been included by stepping back or even angling the lens a little down, this could have been a much better photo.

My choice for second place really stood out to me. The image has a very eerie and cinematic feel with the vehicle sitting on the third and the tracks to the left, leading off into the dark misty distance creating a very strong composition. I love how at first glance it appears that the photographer has captured a very atmospheric and bleak scene, but then on closer inspection you can see that the landscape has started to reclaim its once damaged surroundings.

Looking at this image I was really struck by the desolation of so many broken and dead trees. Some appearing ripped or smashed at the bases. It looks as if this place were some sort of tree grave yard. Further off into the distance you can see the yellow flames burning high on the horizon with the huge plume of smoke billowing up into the air. The pinkish light cast over the sky and the water give a very contaminated feel to the area, and the sense that nothing is likely to grow or thrive here again.

Another really interesting image, and what a great location! I think for me the tree in the foreground stops your eye rather than leads it and becomes a little distracting. I think perhaps exploring the scene and trying to use the fallen tree in the foreground to lead into the image or even stepping back and including it as the main subject may have helped, as it appears to be more of an obstacle than a subject itself. I think that if you find something of interest in a scene it's always good to try and shoot it from different angles and perspectives to find the composition that may not be obvious upon first glance. It's this exploration that will lead to better photos.