Landscapes At Night

A really strong image that I connected with as soon as I saw it, and a contender for my Top 10. The contrast between the warm glow of the protective tent, and the forbidding blue of the cold, high mountain makes me think of the intrepid explorer, and the day they might have ahead tomorrow. It's an uncomplicated image but done well. Close inspection of the file shows a pin sharp image.

The quality of the imagery submitted to this contest made it extremely difficult to narrow down a Top 10. It proved less difficult to select my winning image, as this one has it all for me. It's a relatively straightforward composition, but the dedication that the photographer has exhibited - shooting a 61-minute exposure at just after midnight in the arctic circle - has produced a sublime effect. The lime green of the aurora transitions into a gorgeous peach hue generated by the hum of a nearby town, and all streaked through with elegant star trails. The shot is sharp, correctly exposed, and a delight to look at. Very well done.

There were quite a few urban and city shots submitted to the contest. I've always thought that cityscapes are entirely legitimate landscape images, and so have been happy to include them. Most of the cityscapes were panoramas, often with a waterfront, and there were some beautiful examples, but this one stood out for me. There is incredible detail in the image, it's sharp, well exposed, a lovely crop, and the brightly lit arteries through the Tibetan city provide great interest alongside the buildings of the Buddhist College on the left.

This pastoral scene has flavours of John Constable for me, and deserves its high placing partly due to its unique character. I've never seen a night time shot like it before. It's also possibly the only one in the contest that features animals, and in this case the 30-second exposure is only betrayed by one or two sheep that had been woken by our busy photographer. There's an elegant simplicity about the image, and it's a wonderfully balanced composition, provided by the central positioning of the building and the moon, the fence on the far left, and the sheep in the foreground on the right. Fabulous.

This image has really grown on me through the course of the judging. It's straightforward, honest, it has interest added by the character with the headtorch, and the dying glow of the sun, and the different hues of blue are soothing and easy on the eye. I love the way that the layers of hillside all fall away from the centre of the image. It's not the best quality image file in the contest, there's a bit of noise and over-sharpening, but I kept being drawn back to it and wanted it in my Top 10.

I like this image of Lake Baikal a lot, and it did hover around my Top 10 for a while. Kudos to the photographer for braving temperatures of minus 30 degree celsius! It's a strong composition, and a stunning starry sky set against a dramatic rock formation. I hadn't heard of this place until recently, since when I've have seen a few images on Photocrowd of the elaborate cracked ice patterns on the lake.

My favourite 'building within a landscape' image of the contest. I can't fault this image of Saint-Malo, from the expertly chosen composition, sharp focus from foreground all the way through to the background, and the perfect balancing of the exposure between the lights of the buildings and the natural light in the sky and sea. That balance of exposure, achieved with a 46 second shutter speed, is not easy, and is possibly the greatest achievement here. It also then gives a wonderful zoom burst effect in the shifting sky, which adds to the drama.

There were many fine Milky Way shots entered into this contest, and those that had balanced the stars with a little brightness and detail in the land are my preference. This is my favourite of the bunch. It's a clean and simple composition. The hint of sunlight and cloud on the horizon helps avoid a harsh join between starry sky and land. And the lovely leading lines of the trails in the field are met nicely by the Milky Way.

What an achievement this shot is. A beautiful scene, multi layered, from the boulder-strewn foreground to the distant mountains, via that stunning car-lit road and the deep blue of the lake. I would have been interested to see the image with a slightly darker sky and background mountains, which may balance a little better with the foreground.

Shots like this just take your breath away. What are these buildings, perched so high in the mountains, and where is the photographer at this time of night, to get this shot? The exposure is done beautifully, the dark valley almost lost to the night, and the glow of the mountain station reflecting off the snow is sublime. Fits the brief perfectly, and takes me away from my desk, and to a whole other world.

Wow! I marvel at the skill and dedication of photographers that can create images like this. There's so much of interest to look at in the image, so many layers of detail, and the various elements have been brought together and balanced with great skill and vision. It's a stunning composition that gives just the right amount of room to the starlit sky. My only niggle is that I would have liked to have seen a larger file size, which would have allowed for a bit more interrogation of the image quality, and may have then resulted in a higher placing.