Street life

What I love most about an image is its ability to jump out at you – to instantly catch your eye. This image certainly does that. It's got all the qualities a photograph needs in order to capture street life. A wonderfully striking, dynamic image with great graphic qualities – the photographer here has brought together in an instant the essential elements of composition, light and decisive moment, whilst also giving us bold colours. The body shapes and their arrangement within the frame, and also the way he/she has held everything together by freezing the bright orange ball suspended in mid air in the centre of the frame. I love the use of the light here – combining the silhouettes in the foreground with the strongly lit more colourful subjects in the middle and background. This image very much reminds me of a photograph Alex Webb might have taken; a truly great photographer who is one of the world's very best exponents of street photography. This wonderful photograph is a well deserved first place.

This is a really great example of capturing the moment. All the subjects in this image are slightly eccentric looking, with great expressions. The reactions on the street to a moment of un-abashed flamboyance from the laughing woman on the right is great. The woman on the left with her dour expression, refusing to acknowledge the expression of joy in front of her, and the expression of disapproval and surprise on the face of the woman in the hat, as well as the stern look on the face of the person behind her; all combining to make an amusing, eye-catching photograph.

This is a great image that really holds the eye, as you look at the interesting central character in this scene, stretched out after a knackering day. It's taken from a very interesting angle and combined with its lighting and shallow depth of field, it's both a quirky picture full of content as well as being strongly composed.

I love this image for its "figures in the landscape" feel. It's very well composed, with all the lines of the shadows and the wall and even the string of lights combining well with the shapes of the figures and the skyline to the left.

This is a nicely balanced image, visually strong with its strongly arranged "lines' – the single yellow line across the bottom of the frame complementing the lines of the wires strung along the top of the frame from the telegraph poles, as well as the lines of the pavement and the roof of the house; still yet graphic. Then we have the old blue car complementing the blue of the sky; the yellow of the road marking complementing the yellow hue of the house. The vertical line of the palm tree complementing the vertical line of the telegraph pole. The composition throughout this photograph is very strong. In amongst this very still yet strongly composed image, is the enigmatic figure pushing the trolley, giving the image its one source of movement and life, again, the photographer has waited until the figure in the landscape has arrived at exactly the right place in the frame. This photographer has a wonderful eye.

Another great image that captures street life. Very strong visually, but also very evocative; capturing the carefree nature of childhood. I love the way the boys, arranged nicely in the middle of the frame, are embracing the sudden monsoon downpour, happily drenched in their shorts and looking wondrously up at the sky whilst the adults see only inconvenience and discomfort in the rain. The man on the left looking thoroughly miserable under his brolly whilst the other adult on the other side of the frame in the picture tries to ignore the downpour. The blue colour of the image somehow enhances this great image.

Another quality essential in great street photography is humour. This is a great example of a classic street photograph – wonderfully quirky, and using the subject matter to tell us about life in the busy metropolis. The people here on the London underground are in close proximity to each other yet in their own little worlds. The headless subject in the middle of the frame holding our attention is in an undignified pose, probably because they are the worse for wear after a heavy night's drinking, whilst the couple are too busy to notice, locked in an embrace and consumed with each other's thoughts. The tube worker looks unperturbed by what's going on around him as this scenario is all too common. A great example of "Street Photography".

This very strong picture makes you really feel like you are immersed in amongst the subjects in this busy, colourful street with lots all happening around you; not least because the photographer has got in close and has used a slow shutter speed to capture the swirl of human activity around the very still, charismatic subject in the middle of the frame. Great light too.

This is a lovely image, evoking what it feels like being caught in the rain as a pedestrian negotiating traffic in a big, busy city. Great colours too.

A lovely, impressionistic vision by this photographer. focusing on the raindrops on a window using a shallow depth of field to blur the background street scene. I only wish it had been done in colour. I wonder what colours the umbrella and the rain coat were, as I'm sure taking the picture in colour would have been more suited to this photo, making it more painterly. A wonderfully creative picture nonetheless.

This is a very creative picture. I love the way the slow shutter speed has captured a line of light from the tail lights of a lorry that leads us into a street scene at night on the left. However, it looks like the camera was hand held, and so the figures and the shop in the scene are slightly blurred. Using a tripod and cable release would have made the scene pin sharp which would have made this great image even better. A really creative shot.

I love this image. The colours and the girl's movement, set against the backdrop of the street. I can't help wanting to have the girl more centre-framed, and thereby have more of the street behind her to her right, so I can see more of the street disappearing down behind her, to give more visual context to the photograph. A wonderfully evocative image, though.