Grass

A very intriguing image that stood out particularly well when I viewed it on the Mac. I absolutely love the warm green tones, punctuated throughout the top half of the shot by the plant heads - and the soft painterly style employed in post-processing just tops the whole thing off beautifully. Well done and many thanks for your entry.

First and foremost my thanks to all those who entered this competition and managed to adhere to the brief in the process. Onto the winning image - I can usually spot my winning image quite quickly, but not in this case and I deliberated long and hard on the eventual top 10 placings and the winning shot. I particularly like the cool overtones the author has here along with the degree of softness applied. Depth of field is also good, with the grass in the foreground nicely blurred in favour of what lies beyond. I admit, I usually like a little more contrast but the relative lack of that works particularly well here. I like it very much and congratulations on your winning shot!

There were a proliferation of shots entered that tended to focus on water droplets on grass - either single blades or otherwise. When judging these kind of shots I will look for one particular thing - has grass somehow been captured in the droplet(s)? It has here, which was nice to see. The other stand-out aspect of this shot is the fact you have been brave enough to convert it to B&W, which works really well. Well done, and my thanks for your entry.

Another intriguing shot that stood out well when viewed on a larger screen. Contrast is served well, along with the composition of what I will assume is a crop. The relatively low F number blurs out the background quite nicely - and is yet another shot I would argue that would pass most of us by. Very nice, and my thanks for your entry.

A shot that is, pretty much, after my own heart. I love the moody sky beyond the grass which, thankfully, does not appear over-processed. There appears to be a degree of some kind of intentional camera movement or zoom-burst effect (not entirely sure which) which works really well and all contrasting rather well with the stand-out colours of the grass itself. Very nice, and my thanks for your entry.