Landscape

This is a beautifully crafted and atmospheric autumn scene. This image really stands out for me because of the excellent composition that leads you all the way through the shot, but also fades away into the distance with the mist and light drawing you in. The tones and colour are expertly presented with very subtle and soft textures, but allowing us to see and almost smell the damp woodland autumn conditions. The shot has real impact and really does stir the senses, but also has a great sense of intrigue and mystery with the lone person at the end of the path. The sweep of the leaves on the left and through the shot give a really powerful sense of strong colour contrast to the subtle green tones in the canopy above. This image works well in its design, simple use of minimal colour palette and the use of space and mystery – the trees create a wonderful sense of a passage/tunnel that has been skilfully positioned to create a vanishing point into the distant fog. A wonderful shot that shows a great eye, good technical execution and superb presentation. Well done.

I love this simplicity – the lone tree positioned in the snow reaching into a bleak-looking sky really works well. The tones and colour look natural and balanced and really help you to imagine the scene of fresh snow.

This is a great autumn landscape – the light and texture in this shot really do give you a sense of the time of year and the wonderful array of colour. The path leads you through this avenue of trees towards the end beautifully and you get a real sense of the texture of the trees and leaves all around you. The photographer has skilfully composed the shot to avoid bringing in the sky, which has enabled this beautifully balanced tonal range of yellows, orange and browns throughout the shot and ensured that good details have been captured in the shadow areas as much as the mid and highlight tones, but keeping a good natural ratio of light throughout. A cracking shot.

The clean simple composition of this image is superb. Really good use of a strong leading line from the right along the shoreline that takes you to the building. The minimal colour palette also really strengthens the impact and simplicity and gives an overall sense of isolation and tranquility. I think the image would be even stronger with a crop off half the sky that would then shift the building off the central point of the frame into the top third of the image and really help to add more depth to the shot. I would also suggest backing off the vignetting in the corners slightly as it's starting to clog up the shadows and gives them a little purple colour cast. Well done - it's an excellent shot.

This shot has loads of impact – the tones of the sky, reflections and strong composition really help this image stand out. The wide angle focal length has helped to enhance the sense of depth in this shot - it draws you in from every corner of the frame into the central part of scene. The low shooting angle also creates a strong foreground and platform from which you can stand a gaze at the reflection and the sky. This is a carefully crafted shot that has been exposed well and presented to show this wintery scene with wonderful light and colour.

This is a wonderful scene of poppy fields and sun rays shooting across the field. These types of shots are hard to pull off when dealing with such large range of light, yet the photographer has done a good job in preventing all the shadow areas becoming underexposed. I think this shot could be improved further with some cropping of the frame as the upper part of the sky does not add much interest. And at the bottom left we see a large area of foliage which pulls the eye in that direction rather than forwards. A slight crop top and left would also move the sun more to the top left which i feel would strengthen this shot. But overall it's a good shot of what looks like a beautiful spot.

What impact this shot has! It works really well for me because of the reduced colours – the strong green and grey sky mean it has real contrast mood. Composition-wise I think it’s superb. The beautiful sweep from left to right, and uphill with sweep in the different direction on the left to the tree line, create a great sense of flow and direction around the image. The position of the large tree on the upslope and low height the photographer has shot from really help it stand out against a grey moody sky and draw your eye right to it as a focal point. The texture, details and tones across the field and sky are beautifully caught and presented. The photographer has clearly decided to present this as a stormy moody scene and has succeeded in creating something that really does give us a sense of an incoming storm. Well done, a really powerful image.