Small worlds

The angle here is great, full of drama. I'd have been tempted, myself, to try a 16:9 crop or even something more cinematic like a Panavision [2.39:1] aspect ratio. Given the lack of jaw-dropping action in the top half of the sky and the very dramatic nature of the subject matter, I think this image could have looked great if it was widescreen. The item on the road does nothing for me. It's too indistinct and as there is little colour in the rest of the frame, having more colour in this foreground object just distracts me. It's a great subject shot from a great angle - I just think there were probably a few more choices to be made here that could have resulted in the shot being far more powerful and rewarding for the viewer.

I stared at this shot forever, wondering whether it should be a 'top three' winner. The top six or seven images in this contest are strong, but this was a real contender. Why? The colour is very nice, both the combination of colours [blue, yellow, green] and the way that it feels so natural. The tilt-shift effect is also very nicely done here, with the focus [I think] more interestingly placed along the middle of the platform instead of where others might have put it, which is on the front of the train. The moment has worked out very well, with one headlight stronger than another, giving that lovely spot of light on the rail. The headlights being different colours from each other is also a nice feature. I'd have probably composed it a little more with the camera pointed right, putting the edges of the platform and those lines more into the bottom left corner. I think the balance might have been nicer like that. Still, it really feels like a miniature railway. Great atmosphere.

One of the things I tried not to spend to much time obsessing about whilst judging this contest was whether the shots had been made with real PC lenses or not. This shot has me foxed though.... but the more I look at it, the more I think it's software and not the lens. I'm not really fussed either way, it's a great shot. But the level to which the blur extends down on the sea is not matched with a similar amount of blur on the grooves, where they both lie in the same plane. None of this really distracts from my enjoyment of the shot. I love the colour, the way the frame is beautifully split into zones of sky, sea, buildings and sand. The mix of primary colours and the straight line of huts is one of those gifts we photographers occasionally stumble across as we travel around. It's a perfect photo opportunity and one that has been taken advantage of very well here. Is the bokeh on the sea just from the tilt-shift effect? Or is it a slightly slower shutter-speed? Again, technicalities. The image overall is bright, colourful, engaging and holds the attention. Very nice work.

The blur here is a little overdone, though it serves very well to force attention to that red car in the road. However, I think the photographer missed a trick here. If it were my shot I would have placed the focus on the figure in red who is crossing the road. Great vantage point, though, and a superbly colourful location. The centre framing of the road works well. The part of me who works as an editor would have definitely asked the photographer: 'did you shoot any vertical?' - I think that would have also looked good with this subject.

When I come back from a shoot, on which I may have shot hundreds and sometimes thousands of images, I first look at them at thumbnail size. The ones that jump out at me as thumbnails are the first to get a second look. Thumbnail size is exactly how I first looked at all the images entered into this contest and this shot instantly jumped out at me. The composition is harmonious and engaging; there is a place to which my eye is drawn first [the train] and there are elements which move my eye around the frame [the man and woman looking towards the train, the roof, the line of the train leading out of the station and into the light]. The pool of light across the figures in the lower portion of the frame is beautifully rendered and in the perfect place in the frame. The plane of focus is just right on the train and runs evenly through that portion of the shot. Good use of tilt-shift lenses or a tilt-shift effect has a properly defined plane of focus, which this shot has. The bokeh on the roof is a very nice 'lid' on the top half of the frame and balances the light at the bottom, constantly pushing the eye backwards and forwards, top to bottom, right across the plane of focus in the middle. If the image were mine, I'd have been worried about the impact of the dark patch of negative space at the top left: is it too large, is there any more detail I could pull from the shadows of that part of the shot to at least inject a little life into that dark corner and balance the picture better? It's a small point that would not be a cause of concern if the image were being used editorially: that dark patch is the perfect place for a paragraph of text or a caption. The imbalance of this corner of the frame could be helped by displaying the picture with a pencil-thin white border. My guess is this is shot with a real tilt-shift lens, partly because of how nice and natural the bokeh in the top and bottom of the frame look, and partly because of the crispness of the shot where the plane of focus is placed. The vantage point was chosen well; not too high, not too near the ground. Monochrome suits this subject perfectly too. Very well done.

There's really only one thing wrong with this shot and it's that, if it had of been me behind the camera, I'd have waited until the two people were perfectly in the middle between the piece of rock they've just left and the one they are heading towards. The plane of focus looks natural and the slightly but not too elevated vantage point is just about perfect to give the right effect. I like how the focus starts on the lower portion of rock and leads through the figures to the rock they are heading to. The colour palette is very complimentary and the exposure of the snow has been handled very well. The distribution of blue patches amongst the clouds is lovely, breaking up the clouds, adding colour throughout the top third of the frame right to the very edge. The line of the ridge heading from the centre to the top-right third of the frame is very nice. It's a lovely composition - instantly easy on the eye but with focus, colour, shape and form to lead the eye around and back to the starting pint of the two figures. Not an easy place to shoot and remain totally focussed on the business of shooting. Great job.

This is a well composed shot from a great vantage point, with a good plane of selective focus and very realistic sense of tilt-shift. The colour is great and there are of course many reasons to imagine that one just couldn't go wrong with the camera in a spot like this. That doesn't mean shooting here is easy. Lots of people are shooting in a place like this and finding a unique take on a popular spot is one of the constant challenges I have in the travel photography I do. The big thing for me here is that the plane of focus draws attention to the name of the shop...and once I'd seen that, I couldn't take my eyes off it and let them move around the frame as much as I wanted to. If it were me, I'd have focused on the group of people sat at the base of the column instead.

There's a lot to love about this shot, especially for someone like me who grew up near and spent a lot of time on the inland waterways of England. It's a great choice of scene and has been really nicely composed. The way the canal weaves through the frame is particularly lovely and the house on one side is well balanced by the boats on the other... the two connected by the bridge is a great spot to have put the plane of focus. It's a bit too saturated for me though. I know a lot of the articles on the web and examples of how to do the 'miniature effect' shots talk about over-saturating images and then texturising them. I just think the colour in this could have been a little less vivid and the shot would have worked just as well. Taking some of the yellow tones out would have cleaned the colour of the house, and removing yellow is also usually the best way to start solving issues with how greens look in a shot. Warmth is a nice thing about this shot. I think, however, that the yellowish tone of the warmth could have been swapped for a slightly different tone. Very nice shot though. Makes this Englishman, sat in Tokyo, very homesick for the pastoral scenes in the UK!

This shot gives me the impression of having been shot using a tilt-shift lens.... which makes having captured the chopper so well something of a feat. PC lenses can be crazily difficult to use if you want to be very precise about where the plane of focus goes. With moving subjects you have to excercise extreme patience, waiting for the moving object to reach the area you've selected to be in focus, as re-framing and re-focusing is just too difficult to do quickly enough with something like a low-flying Chinook. The 'dutch tilt' on the shot adds a sense of drama. I'd have been tempted to see what this looked like in contrasty monochrome as it may have added even more of a news sort of feel. Maybe a little darker? But I have a tendency to like darker, moodier pictures. Nicely done, great moment captured and well composed.

When I first saw the screen full of 236 thumbnails, of all the shots in this contest, this one so instantly jumped at me that I gave it four stars immediately and went through all 235 other shots before I gave it a second look. The colour combination here [yellow and blue] is a great one. The composition, with the road leading diagonally across the frame, is also very nice. Very engaging and dynamic. The layers of glass through which we're looking here..... great. Lovely. Then I went back and looked at the shot full-size. And that's what lets it down. It's a picture to be viewed very small on the screen. Walk 12 or 15 feet across the room and look at this on the screen full-size and it's a winner. If I were commissioning a series of pictures for postage stamps that instantly said 'New York'... this would be there, no doubt. That's not meant to be funny or sarcastic - it's the truth. Small, this image is awesome. But it just isn't made to be viewed large.

To think this would be a good place to stand a shoot a shot for the tilt-shift effect...to point the camera down at this exact angle: these things show that the photographer is making some good choices. And I think, if the tilt-shift effect is something that really interests the photographer of this shot, then he or she should go out and try to find some way of getting their hands on a real tilt-shift lens to have a play. It's a lot of fun and I would take it right back to this spot and see what this part of the world looks like through it. It would also help them understand that this effect - with the focus in a circular area of the middle of the lens - is not something that would ever happen with a real PC lens. That said, there are many other ways to create a photo that sums up the brief 'small worlds'.... and this could easily be one of them: like looking through a kaleidoscope.

The fifteen people for whom I've written these reviews: I wish I could take you all out for a day, so we could have a play with some real tilt-shift lenses and also with my old 4x5 large format camera...because I think each of you has picked something interesting to shoot. This subject, for instance, would be a great one to explore with something like the large-format camera I have. Seeing this shot made me imagine how we could have stood farther back and framed, perhaps, vertically [from the top of the ears to under the nose] - putting a plane of focus through the animal's eye. Perspective control is an amazing way of drawing attention to specific things in a portrait photo and the eyes of a human or animal are great things to look at and focus on in photos. I think a shot from farther away would have been the right choice to make here - but it's a great subject and I still really like this photo even if it doesn't, perhaps, fulfil the brief as well as other images do.

There's no doubt that this is a photo of a 'small world'... or indeed a journey into a more human life-size version of a world that is otherwise small unless you have a macro lens. It's a great macro shot. Wonderful focus, lovely colour and detail. For this brief it doesn't really fit, though. But I wanted to tell the photographer of this shot how well I think they have done to take it. Macro isn't easy. Depth of field is so shallow at this magnification. Lighting can be tricky, and whilst all photography requires a lot of patience, nature and macro work requires it by the bucket-load. Great macro shot.

If this contest had been called something like 'Just Like We Did It In the Old Days' or 'In a Large-Format Style', then this shot would have been my winner. If this hasn't been shot with a large format camera or at least with a real tilt-shift lens, well... you have me fooled! The subject is great. The fall-off of focus across the branches at the top of the frame is very very much like I would get with the 210mm Nikkor W lens on my Tachihara 4x5 camera if I used a little tilt of the lens and film plane. The colour is lovely, the subject is beautiful, and you've framed it wonderfully. I'd hang this on my wall tomorrow. Top marks, but wrong contest to enter this photo in, IMHO.