Food and drink

There's nothing more comforting than sitting around a campfire and melting marshmallows over the flames. This shot has warmth and tastiness in spades. The sharp focus on the marshmallows make us salivate, and the blurred fire light behind draws us in further to the photo. The cherry on the cake is the melted chocolate that draws the foreground and background together by visually conveying the warmth in this scene. The composition is perfect with the rule of thirds followed almost to the book. With warm and cool tones throughout, we're getting hungry.

The simple, geometric shapes work so well here. The stand out part of this photo for us, is how clean everything is. It would be all too easy to spill the black coffee on the lip of the bowl. It has been very considered. If you pour the coffee in the bowl and then move it into place, the edges will be lined with a thin film of the coffee, but this was clearly set-up in place demonstrating forethought and experience.

The longer you look at this photo, the more you understand why it works so well. First, the story of the uniformed figures in the bottom-right shows a sense of camaraderie eating and sharing food. Top left the figure walking past seems to be superfluous, but actually there are splashes of colour that relate to the team. The green of the bag, the plate on the table and the plant at the bottom all tie together, as do the pink trousers, tissue dispenser and another bag. The blue tables add areas of colour to an otherwise grey ground.

There were a few entries that featured miniature people, but none worked quite as well as this one. The technical challenges involved with getting everything sharp at such a high magnification is already up there, but the treatment of the egg shell, the placement of the figures and the framing of the photo all add up to create a strong image. Getting the figures into position without the tell tale glue under the feet is impressive, and the actions they’re portraying work perfectly with the hole in the shell.

The depth of field is shallow here, and the focus put solely on the stack of pancakes. You can see the black bowl behind and the cup of joe in the foreground despite being out of focus, and rightly so. Had everything been in sharp relief there’d have been no sense of intimacy or direction from the photographer. Timing the shot with the syrup pouring finishes the set. There are simple catchlights in the syrup that highlight its glossiness and the whole photo is well lit with the light fall off in the background.