Shopping

Placing the old-fashioned scales in the foreground of this shot is a clever move; interior shots of shops can lack focus. The scales and jars mean it's clear that this is a shop, so you don't need to see every detail in the shelves behind. The distortion from the lens makes you aware that you're seeing more than you could with the naked eye and adds character to the image - effective use of distortion can be tricky to achieve - and the colours and tones appear to have been boosted, but to a level where they improve the shot rather than look fake.

Night-time market shots like this are extremely difficult to take. First, there's a massive variation in lighting, from the dark outside the stall to the bright lights illuminating it. Second, the customers aren't going to pose nicely or hang around waiting for the photographer to take a shot. This photographer has captured the action at the fish market beautifully, with the expressions on the faces of the customers and vendor nicely clear, the fish easy to make out, and blurred hands in the foreground suggesting activity.

This image is deceptively simple: it's a woman buying trainers. Yet it's an astonishingly difficult image to get right, because such a mundane subject can easily fall flat. There's a full range of tones, colours are punchy without being overcooked, and while there are shelves of shoes and boxes to either side of the woman, the photographer has used the lines of perspective they form to draw your eye towards her, so instead of making the photo look cluttered they actually simplify it.

A number of photographs of produce or massed items for sale were submitted, but the judges especially liked this one. The photographer stood far enough back to include prices and baskets in the shot, which helped to reinforce the overall theme of 'shopping', while the shot is framed so that the tomatoes form a rough zigzag that draws the viewer's eye to all parts of the picture. The lighting and overall colours are great; they're extra punchy without being unrealistic.

Shopping is a social activity, and this portrait of a young man waiting at a stall captures the pleasure people have when they're out with a friend for a treat. The depth of field is nicely handled; there's just enough blur in the background to isolate the young man, giving you a sense that he and the photographer are sharing a moment, but you can see the market behind and know he's waiting to make a purchase. Turning the photo monochrome removes potentially confusing colours, reinforcing the effect of the background blur.