Sports!

This fantastic capture from Terry scoops up pole position in our Sports photo competition this month! Terry's creative vision and use of a slow shutter speed to blur the water made it stand out from the crowd. We love his composition which reveals the hoard of swimmers competing and the absolute chaos in the water. He's caught just the right moment where the lead swimmer has popped his head up and all of the others are face down so it makes him an obvious focal point. Congratulations, we look forward to seeing more from you in the future!

Gideon's done a brilliant job at capturing this image of his son sprinting on the beach with his great dane puppy. His fast shutter speed of 1/640 sec has helped freeze the moment and also has underexposed the scene a little too - useful for retaining the highlight detail when shooting in the golden hour. The reflection works well and his composition leaves plenty of 'active' space on the right for them to run into. Great job!

Alex has managed to capture an excellent Motocross action shot here. Using a blisteringly fast shutter speed of 1/2500 sec he's frozen the moment in this biker's trick with absolutely no camera shake. The sky behind is a perfectly consistent blue which really helps the rider and bike to stand out and makes for a much more colourful shot than if it was taken an overcast day.. Great work, we look forward to seeing more from you soon!

Helen's done a fantastic job using a slow shutter speed of two seconds to capture the movement of her fencers and used rear curtain sync flash to freeze the moment that the fencer on the right made a lunge. Brilliant creative vision and execution.

Dominic's caught an absolute knock out of an image here! He's been fortunate enough to have the two boxers facing him as this can be pot luck and sometimes the action happens when they're facing away from the camera. He's done a stellar job to catch the moment Pykes' right hand hook connected and the harsh ring side lights add to the drama too. He's expertly boosted his ISO to 6400 for a shutter speed of 1/640 sec which has helped to freeze the moment without camera shake. Great job!

Alexander's snowboarder stands out clearly on such a pristine blue sky with brightly coloured clothing, it really helps the whole image to 'pop'. He's also used a fast shutter speed of 1/400 sec by boosting his ISO value a little. This fast shutter speed has helped him freeze the snowboarder in mid-air with no camera shake. Great work!

Jacquie's caught a fantastic moment from this horse race, expertly using a slow shutter speed of 1/50 sec while panning the camera to blur the background while keeping her subjects sharp. The black and white conversion works well and adds to the drama and helps bring out extra contrast and detail too and the central composition works incredibly well too. Top job!

This is a great extreme sports shot from Graeme who's caught this skateboarder mid air. It's perfectly sharp enough, though to take this shot to the next level we'd have liked to see him get a little closer to get the full potential from his ultra-wide angle view and also underexpose the image a little as the sky is just starting to blow out. These minor niggles aside it's a fantastic shot.

Nguyen's image of two ballet dancers is simple yet effective. Capturing the perfect moment in their mid-air pose must have been quite challenging but he's absolutely nailed it, creating the outline of a heart shape in their form. Great job!

Ray's image of Marc Marquez is perfectly panned, well exposed, full of colour and tightly cropped so we can see the action in glorious detail, so we think he can safely say that he's smashed his goal of trying to achieve pro-level shots. Great job!

Lovely shot, the photographer has done well to retain so much highlight detail in the sky without it blowing out. The black and white processing works really well and helps boost the contrast. The composition is a little too central and might be more effective placing the rider more towards the of the frame to give him a bit more space in the composition to move into.

Wayne's captured a knockout shot here full of action, speed and detail. He's been fortunate enough to be in a good position when the blow was struck here, as more often than not they have their backs to the camera, making a clean shot difficult to achieve. Wayne's side-on to both boxers so has been able to catch this jab just at the right time. He's expertly used a high ISO for a fast shutter speed to eliminate camera shake and make sure it came out pin-sharp. Top job!

Wendy's captured a brilliant image here full of colour on a beautifully sunny day. She's caught the right moment when the horse and rider are mid-air on this jump, but I think this composition could work stronger if Wendy was more side-on to the horse or looking from the front rather than from behind as this would create stronger eye contact with both subjects. I also wonder if getting down lower you could incorporate more of the yellow flowers in the foreground to ramp up the summer colours even further. These minor issues aside it's a fantastic shot and we look forward to seeing more from Wendy in the future.

I love the creative vision behind Paul's sequence of pictures here - it certainly makes for an image that stands out. However, I think for this sort of image to reach its full potential you need to see the ball in every frame which has been cropped out in the middle two images. I'd also be tempted to make each section the same width so it looks more consistent. Great idea and look forward to seeing more from you in the future.