Human movement

This is a simple image, and the technique of having a focused architecture with a moving person was used many times in this competition.

But I chose this picture over than any of the others. The reason is that the relation to the architecture and the person is so elegant.

The photograph without the person is lovely and clean and considered. Everything is precise. The perspective lines are very carefully considered - for example, the photographer resisted the temptation of creating an easy symmetry of perspective lines by moving the camera to the left, or even right.

The light sources look great, and everything therefore makes a nice clean, slightly cold architectural shot.

But then the introduction of this single blurred figure destabilises the whole thing - suddenly the shot stops being timeless and architectural and starts to contain information about time and about a human presence.

And finally, the addition of this person makes us ask - why only one?

We can easily feel OK about the station being empty a single human is a very strange number indeed.

Architectural, considered and intelligent.

I wanted to review this image, because it is a great example of a good photograph that was spoiled by post-production.

The start shot looks great, with a fascinating subject and a great motion. But the decision to artificially blur the rear people was not needed, and it was badly done with some sharp people near the jumper left unaffected.

This would have been commended had it not been retouched. So people, be careful: Photoshop can destroy as easily as it can create...

Urban strife is dramatic, and this shot lets us view it in a cinematic way.

The purple smoke, the gold light, the sparks of fire, all make this feel like part of a film. The invisible figure on the left is a great addition, and the moment of the kick is great.

We have camera shake in the shot, and we could criticise this technically, but that would be silly

It's a fraction of a second of reportage that looks like art or cinema.

This one caught me, because I got dragged in by multiple unfamiliar things

The main point of this photograph is human movement, but it is such an unfamiliar example of movement. By the intensity in the man's face, and the tense readiness of the defender, I feel that something with strong intention is happening, but I feel puzzled as to what it is.

Is this a game, or a fight? Is he trying to gently touch, or to forcefully attack? Are they friends, or enemies?

I like the fact that the movement has an elegant intentionality and at the same time is quite baffling.

To add to the puzzle we have a location, which I guessed, correctly, to be UAE by the clothing, but the complicating factor of it being on grass, which transports me to the cooler climates of Europe

A cryptic puzzle.

This is my winning shot. It has got so many great elements. Firstly, the feel of the environment, with the green, the dark water, the soft light - it is so intense that I feel that I can smell it.

Secondly, the boy. His exuberant jump brings me back to being a boy and leaping recklessly into pools.

The fact that we can not see his face helps us feel as if we are him, and we are jumping into the water.

I love the fact that the green of his shorts connect with the environment - so we don't have another un-needed material in the shot (like bright sportswear)

And the details are great - the kick of light on his side; the wet skin and hair that tell us that this is a repeated action; the shoes bring something practical into the image; and even the little touches like a necklace, that make me thing of how a boy becomes self conscious as he becomes a young man.

Altogether an excellent shot, full of exuberant life, that I can keep looking at for a long time.

A very 'Post-Modern' image.

We are looking at a photograph, of someone taking a photograph (on a mobile) in front of someone moving in front of a painting of a photograph.

It is full of unexpected quirks that make it enjoyable: The eyes of the painted man looking upwards, the rider sideways and the photographer - no one is looking at the camera.

Another thing that is fun is the fact that the photo-taker is covered with specialist skateboard equipment, but his action is photography.

The slight blur is nice and it relates strangely to the dripped paint on the large face. And who is the subject of the photograph?

Interesting and intriguing.

This shot surprised me at first - I thought it was a technical error - because it is normal to pan the camera when following a moving object; this would leave the background blurred.

But on second look, I thought that this is a very interesting decision. As the landscape is so incredible, it is beautiful to have the camera locked down and the jumper blurred.

It is a nice take on a landscape shot with the added twist of the blurry jumper. Plus, there is an overall attractive feel in the grading, giving it a dusty, bright, dream-like quality.

This location is a great find. Then finding the dancing, within the location, beneath the photograph of the dancing, is a second great find.

This is such a simple photograph, but it really works. The black and white helps the confusion between the photo on the wall and the main image of dancers.

I like the fact that you start to get confused about specific items such as the mirrorball and the lights - not knowing quite where they actually are.

A very surreal image.

When I first saw this I assumed that it had been lit by a flash. Then I realised that the sun was at such a low angle that it could hit the vertical body but not brighten the horizontal sand - creating that very specific light difference that I had seen.

My next two thoughts were that I was transported back to trips to the beaches of Thailand, with that tropical dusk air - but at the same time, I was grabbed by the pinging redness of her clothes that jump forward at the viewer.

What I liked then, after the initial impact, was a series of strange little mysteries:

She's smiling, when doing such a jump, obviously for the camera

There is another person wearing the same red on the right.

If the person had been a European tourist the photo would have been familiar. But with a person who looks like a local, suddenly the image comes back to life because it challenges my experience of seeing seeing photographs of European tourists doing 'tourist things' whilst local people do 'local things'

Beautiful light, intriguing narrative.

The thing that seduced me into this image is the colour of the waterproofs and boots, in front of the green grass.

But the thing that kept me looking was the tiny bits of grit in the air. Those tiny specks tell us a lot about the speed of the photograph as well as the motion of the young person.

It is an exciting image, full of life and vigour - great materials, great colour

(I love the pink boots as well).

Photos like this are interesting because they ask - "who is the creator here?"

I love this guy. I like the fact that he has worked very hard to create a system of mobility, using a bicycle, but adding to it with luggage.

I particularly like the layering of luggage both behind and on top of the bike. But who is the creator of this image?

The photographer, or the man on the bike? Or, is it shared?

The capturing of real things in the world opens up a lot of interesting questions.

A lovely shot, with many unusual features.

The heavily graded, filtered black and white image is not what you expect to see on a mountain top. And the woman, with her blonde hair knot and her frail physique (made more tiny by her enormous boots) also look unexpected.

For some reason, I feel as if the woman is at ground level with me, but the world she is standing in is 2500m high.

Then, add these intriguing elements: her signalling to a distant person and ignoring the camera; a hard light but dark shadowed face; the distant person looking at us but the close one not; the dramatic clouds and the beautiful distant mountain horizon.

There's a lot here - a very interesting image.

This is a strange and interesting photograph. I had very mixed feelings about it.

The crop is so tight particularly to the hand, that it feels very stifled. This is a very odd way to crop a moving body.

But any decision can be read as an artistic one. Perhaps this cropping should be seen as a way of intensifying the focus on the figure.

The actual position is strange as well. It is quite clumsy, and the horizontality of the figure feels very unnatural. Also, there is something odd about the relationship of the figure and the background, as if it has been cut out and comped in. There seems to be a dark line on the upper edge of the body that suggests that it was once on a darker background. Or maybe I am wrong.

The whole image is very 'old-feeling' as if it was shot in 1930. It has a 'propaganda' feel to it.

And to top it off, you have a crucifixion reference, as if Jesus had been photographed from below on the cross, then rotated by 90 degrees.

This wins the award, if there was one, for 'most conflicting photograph'. I really can't work it out.

And that is a good thing.