Music

This is a good strong portrait of a musician and his instrument. The profile view of the guitarist, highlighted here by the front lighting which nicely catches his eye, makes the image quite interesting and is captivating for the viewer. The subject's position also accommodates the prominent position of the instrument by his side. I think the use of black and white in this instance make the image stronger, and I think it has all the subtle undertones of a lasting iconic image.

I like this shot a lot, and the singer looks great and has been captured well. The lighting and background stage light decorations/logos add to the quirkiness of the image, which as a whole would certainly make me want to check out the band to find out more or hear how they sound. However, I’d be interested to see some alternative framing of the singer, maybe to include feet, or to go in tighter to lose the clutter of the bottles.

The story behind this image tells us that a little research, or knowing the band well, can really help you to characterise the band in a single shot. The jump has been brilliantly captured, and is as sharp as you’re going to get it, and sums up the mood and atmosphere of the gig. It’s a shame the other musicians are lost in the distance, although it is the curse of the drummer to always remain behind a cymbal.

This image depicting the serenity of music is nicely illustrated by the synonymous relationship of the cellist and the ballerina. I think the minimal feel of the image, with lots of space around each performer, adds to the feelings of beauty, movement and the body. The stage lights highlight the artists well, but it may be nice to see the dancer facing the viewer as though capturing the audience. It might also be nice to see some movement in the bow of the instrument or in the dancer, which could be achieved by a slightly slower shutter speed.

Wow, what a huge crowd, and is that more people up in the stands at the top left of the image? The stage lights spilling out over the crowd here create a strong contrast that emphasizes the size of the audience, all adding energy to the shot. It’s filled the frame quite nicely too, with the eye naturally leading to a point on the right where the stage performers are. Again, it focuses on the audience as opposed to the band, but this elevated view accentuates the grand scale of the event.

This is a nice shot of the Village Violinist, and you can almost hear the bow on the strings (although I am still trying to guess if it’s an Irish fiddle or classical). As he’s local to the village, and the image is obviously outdoors and contextual it’s nice to have some detail of the Village in the background. However, just catching site of the second violinist behind him (to the right side of the image) is a little distracting, and it would be nicer to frame him with a cleaner background in the close vicinity.

This atmospheric festival image does well to illustrate the excitement of the crowd, which could apply to many gigs as it doesn't focus on the band itself. The stage lights naturally overexpose the act, but they also give an enhancing back-light to the individual audience members. It’s well framed by the hands applauding the band in the air in the foreground and by the top of the stage in the background. This will be a familiar scene to many!

This great shot screams with energy, and the action is perfectly captured: the face is pin sharp and the shallow focus on the face draws your eye into the singer, whilst giving the impression that the hand is reaching out to the crowd. If there are any small complaints from me it’s that the singer could fill the frame a little more, thus leaving a cleaner background behind. But, like I said, it's only a small complaint, and it's a worthy 3rd place winner.

This is a really lovely image of a young boy playing the trumpet at sunrise, with London’s Westminster in the background. He looks like a young street performer or busker. The orange glow of the early morning light in the background almost makes the Houses of Parliament look like a painted backdrop due to the aperture being wide open. The soft natural light is falling beautifully on the boy’s face, catching the end of his trumpet to add to the serenity of this early morning shot. Thankfully he’s a very willing performer at this time of the morning. I wonder if the neighbours agreed!

The green leaves of the tropical forest framing the young boy perched on the tree trunk playing his recorder, apparently oblivious to the camera, seems to add to the serenity of this image, and the landscape as a whole. The natural light is captured beautifully in the leaves, and the early morning mist, evokes messages of natural beauty, tranquillity and peace that could all be expressed through the boy's music. Again, this image could work just as well as a travel image, but to add extra focus to the boy the image could have been shot with the aperture wide open, perhaps set to F2.8 if the lens would allow.

I love the atmosphere of this image and the mood that it evokes. And it says as much about the on-looking crowd as it does about the musicians. The central framing of the stage and the crowd that wraps around it to fill the frame makes the whole image very well composed. And the use of people's phones which gives a twinkling light that looks like fireflies in the distance is beautiful. Whilst this image is aesthetically pleasing, it’s also a testament to our time and I think it will have a lasting historical value. I feel that this image has best captured the energy and serenity of music – two opposites that are often hard to combine in one image.

'Music At The Edge' looks like an interesting bout of Photoshop trickery - very well done to create a composite image that fulfills the brief. I find it clever and intriguing, but whilst it shows off some exceptional post-production skills, I’m not feeling the energy of the music as much as I am the energy of nature, with the dark stormy clouds and the gulls heading inland - perhaps indicating that there is a storm brewing out at sea – with the waves crashing on the shore and the music blowing away from the violinist. It’s clever; it’s just not necessarily for me.

There’s a lovely tranquil feel to this image and it looks like it could really tell a story (in fact, it does so in the image caption!) of history, the culture, the music, the instruments, and the man himself. The subtle tones of the image, and the dark wood that frame the elderly man create an ambiance, which is enhanced here by the use of natural light to capture the image. This photo would work equally well as a travel image. Very well done.

Clearly there’s a lot of energy – or the guitarist is all out of energy and has fallen to the floor. It looks like the climax of a good guitar solo, or the end of a great set. The performance looks gritty and sweaty, all in a good way. However, the stage lighting is unfortunately picking up a huge highlight on his knee that distracts the viewers’ eye from his face which is mostly in shadow. If this could have been avoided it would have been a cracking shot.

A good DJ shot, and I like the use of light, creating a colourful swirl of movement around the DJ, who’s nicely in focus and has been framed in the image well using a fish-eye lens. There’s a nice bit of ambiance around him too, and whilst some of the audience enhance the image, others look less engaged by the music and the atmosphere. It would enhance the image greatly if there was a huge crowd, all geared up and dancing in the background, but the use of light is great and the overall effect very good.

‘Little Band’ conjures up the feelings of music in early childhood, which I’m sure could be a million different things for all of us. The setting sun has filled the sky with orange, and has silhouetted these little performers with their instruments. The setting itself is beautiful and serene, allowing for a huge background of bright orange sky, and again rings of travel and exploration. I wonder if that microphone is plugged in to a power supply…

This is a really nicely captured image, sharp on the singer's face with a clean background and good use of the stage lights. You can see that the artist is really immersed in the performance, and that’s key to capturing the mood of the event. However, the strong contrast has lost some of the performer's face into the background, and harsh shadows on the performer's hands obscure the view a little bit. It’s hard to tell whether she’s singing into a microphone or playing an instrument. That said, it’s really well done and was hard to omit from the Top 10.