Joe’s sublime sunrise image of the beautiful Loch Rusky, found in Trossachs in Scotland, has been captured masterfully and takes the top spot in our Minimalist Landscapes contest this month. We love the simplicity of the four empty boats floating on the ethereal loch on a misty morning with a stunning sunrise colour palette bursting out from behind the trees on the horizon.
2,486 Images entered
1,163 Photographers
Alain's wonderful blue hour shot of the iconic golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco uses the classic orange and teal colours to add contrast and give his landscape a cinematic look. The warm bright lights from the bridge do a fantastic job of pulling the viewer in from the dark and cold blue surrounding.
Lliley took this fantastic seascape at the historic Naples Pier, located on the Gulf of Mexico. She tells us, “I recently got into long exposure photography and decided to start using manual mode instead of Auto. This was very scary for me because I never like to miss the shot by making mistakes while playing with settings. Shooting into the sun proved to be a challenge for sure. After more than 20 wrong shots I was finally able to strike the right exposure balance with my 10 stop filter and this was the final image.”
Matt took this graphic sunset scene in Phoenix, Arizona, telling us “I hiked up the western slope of South Mountain and came across this lone cactus rising against the hillside. I set up and just waited for the lighting to be just right”. The lighting looks perfect to us, and the lone cactus standing proud on the hill with the view of Phoenix in the background works marvellously well.
Nick has taken a fantastic shot of the Rio de las Vueltas El Chalten in Patagonia, shooting from high up to give an expansive view of this beautiful vista. Unfortunately we can see a bit of a ghosting effect in the clouds and hills, this is perhaps due to the camera being knocked during the exposure or a Photoshop attempt that doesn't look 100% right. This small issue aside, it's a cracker.
Robert has caught a fantastic sunset looking across the Dead Sea from Jordan to Israel and has done a great job at catching those warm fiery tones without overexposing them. Our only critique would be to remove the pole at the bottom of the frame as well as tidy up a few dust spots around the image which also draw the eye away from this otherwise sublime sunset.
There are few spots in the world as stunning and suitable for a top minimalistic landscape as the legendary Wanaka tree in New Zealand. Christoph has done a beautiful job catching this famous spot with brilliant lighting hitting the mountain tops in the background, and used a long exposure of 10 secs to blur the water of the tree too.
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Martin has caught a fantastic shot of the stunning Calvary Banská Štiavnica in Slovakia here. Most images of this beautiful piece of architecture show the unit on the hill in pristine sunshine, but shooting through thick fog and cloud Martin has removed any surrounding distractions and made sure the viewer's attention is firmly drawn towards the middle of his shot. Great job!
Brief
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This month we want to see your best minimalist landscapes taken with Canon cameras. Anything from a simple structure in your landscape, such as a lone tree, windmill, lighthouse or building can work well. Try not to clutter the frame with too many distractions and zoom in if needed to focus the eye on your focal point. Our favourite minimalist landscape images will appear in PhotoPlus magazine, so if you have an image that is perfect for our brief, submit it for a chance to be featured in the magazine and the winner will take home a Lowepro Trekker Lite BP 250AW (Black) worth £165.95! We look forward to seeing your best shots!
Minimalist landscapes don't get much more minimal than this wonderful shot, simply consisting of three elements: the sea, sky and the marker at the end of a groyne. It's well composed, though the groyne does sit a little off centre which is a little bit distracting and could easily be fixed with post-production.
This is a wonderful capture of a lighthouse scene at night with the photographer opting for a four second exposure time which has blurred the crashing waves nicely. Our only issues with this image are that the horizon isn't perfectly level and the sea defence wall which trails around to the lighthouse works well as a lead-in line, but as it's cut off on the left hand side of the frame it's a little awkward. Including the whole wall curving around would potentially work better as a composition.
