This beautiful autumnal capture immediately caught my eye. I love its clean composition, with the stag in the middle, its face two thirds up the frame, and the other deer scattered behind him, blurred but still visible in the distance. The soft light catches the stag here and there, adding pleasant golden highlights on its nose, antlers and fur. The haze in the background adds mystique, whilst the warm tones make the shot beautifully autumnal. The use of vignetting is clever, as it softly frames the stag whilst adding a touch of drama and intensity to the already beautiful image.
This is a gorgeous macro shot that is extremely satisfying to look at. The focus is spot on, falling onto the bug's face entirely and then fading out into blur. The light, beautifully soft, catches the bug's shell revealing iridescent colours, bringing to life an incredible amount of texture (who knew it was there?) and satisfying, perfect tiny droplets. The vignetting works hand in hand with the blur from the depth of field to frame the scene, allowing the viewer's attention to concentrate onto the bug alone. This very successful macro shot thoroughly deserves its place in the competition.
This shot immediately caught my eye. The composition is immaculate: the thorny branch cuts pleasingly across the frame, with smaller, frozen branches blurring in the background, adding depth to the scene. The bird is captured at an angle where it shows us its wings, tail, face, and profile all at the same time. The contrast is high but just the right amount, the sharpness incredibly pleasing to look at, and the vignetting adds a touch of intimacy to the scene. This is a magical capture that I love looking at.
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Vignetting - the darkening or softening of the edges of an image, in particular around the corners - is a natural occurrence with certain lenses, but is also created deliberately as an artistic effect. It places more emphasis on the subject in the centre of the frame, and can give an old-time and nostalgic feel to an image, as the effect is one that was employed a lot more in the past. Nowadays it’s an effect that can be reproduced with a lot of control and variation in post-processing software such as Affinity Photo or Photoshop, and can really produce a pleasing result. As with all post-processing, subtlety is usually well rewarded! No frames or illustrated/graphic borders should be added to images for this contest.
