Light and shadow

This is a photograph that immediately brings to mind the work of the legendary street photographer Joel Meyerowitz. The golden strip of colour against the wall and pavement, with the same light bringing a glow to the woman's golden hair and equally golden coat is fortuitous indeed. But it takes a skilled and practised photographer to both anticipate and respond to such a scene. There's an air of mystery about the woman - we want to know who she is, where she'd been and where she's going. It's these qualities that make this a worthy winner, and an image to return to again and again.

When shooting virtually empty scenes with few details, there's a balance to be struck between creating an abstract and including just enough information for the eye to latch on to. This image achieves that extremely well. The sinuous curve that almost bisects the frame is well placed, with the mottled area bottom right anchoring the scene, and the trees top left giving the eye somewhere to pause before continuing its journey through the image. The black & white conversion is well considered, too.

This is a superb documentary image, made all the more powerful by the dramatic light inside the building where the encounter is taking place. The brief is fulfilled extremely effectively, and the backlighting gives great depth to the scene. The story behind the image is fascinating, and we know we certainly wouldn't want to be the unfortunate man on the receiving end of the telling off!

Paper art has become a very popular still-life technique in recent years, and this is a good example. The teardrop shapes nestle together in the frame very nicely, while the contrast between light and shade is well executed. The judges felt the vignette was a little on the heavy side, but other than that small criticism, it's nicely done.

This is an unusual treatment of the brief, and stands out because of it. Approaching a theme with imagination is always going to garner attention, and shooting through tracing paper to create texture, shadows and silhouettes is an ingenious idea. The shape of the grasses lends itself well to being backlit, as does the sadly deceased butterfly - the lighting showing up the delicate translucence of its wings.