With a few adjustments this would likely have made the top 10, but unfortunately these little details were hard to overlook. The composition, subject matter and toning all make for a compelling image, there is a lot to like about it.
With architecture in particular, correcting your verticals caused by wide angle lenses is a must. This is particularly noticeable on the cable car support, which is leaning heavily. The image is also crying out to be composed slightly lower in the frame. The top of the building is cropped off, a touch lower and the image would have breathing space.
In the bottom right hand corner, there is a little bit of the ground showing, which apart from being very distracting, places the photographer firmly on land. Without this there would be much more ambiguity as to where the shot was taken from.
These minor details are all easily corrected in processing, and would make the shot a great image.
2,305 Images entered
1,597 Photographers
100,628 Ratings
What an image. Ive seen lots of fantastic shots of trees in Namibia, and whilst the location looks like a photographers dream, with its unearthly landscape, they are often very similar in style. This shot stands apart, for the sheer drama and movement it contains. The light is sublime, and the way it adds depth to the blowing sand on the dunes brings the shot to life. If I had to be critical, then there are a few little elements which draw your eye away from shot slightly diluting the effect - the grasses on the bottom, and the diagonal lines in the top corner. If the photographer was able to clone or crop those out the shot would become even stronger in my opinion, by concentrating all the attention on the key elements of the superb relationship between the tree, the flowing sand and the delicious light that is flooding over them.
This is about as far removed from a traditional landscape photograph as you can get, but I love it. It is ambiguous, dynamic and dramatic. The grain and harsh contrast really suit the subject matter, rather than trying to make these old abandoned fortifications look pretty, the photographer has embraced their true nature. It's hard to critique it in a photographic sense, as it is all about the emotion of the end result rather than the technical execution, and for me that is what a photograph should be.
Brief
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Landscape, seascape and cityscape photography are all breath-taking for their own, separate reasons, but we’re collating all three for this contest. One or more can be combined in the same shot or you can send us your finest example of just one. This will really test your wide-angle skills, so make sure you’ve done your research.
I love the drama and sense of story in this shot. The solitary figure leads you through the shot perfectly, with the footprints drawing you in and adding a sense of time passing. The backlit sand drift looks fantastic and gives a hard edge to the image.
The only downside for me is the very noticeable halo around the person, which really detracts from the image and stopped me giving it a higher placing, as it could have been easily dealt with in processing.
That aside, its still a really powerful shot, and worthy of the the top 10
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