Sunset scenes

Yan's lovely landscape comes first in our 'Sunset scenes' contest with its fantastic depth, texture and contrasting colours. The icy foreground does a brilliant job at anchoring the bottom half of the frame and leads the eye nicely towards the striking mountains and incredible fiery sunset sky. Great job!

This is a fantastic sunset shot from Julia who has used the rule of thirds to position the pier in the top left of the frame and then use the pier itself as a sort of lead-in line to to guide you towards it. We love that she's included some cooler, darker tones in her foreground to help balance out the brighter and warmer sunset tones which adds heaps of dynamic range and contrast too and she's well to retain all of the sky detail. Great job!

Gideon's taken an incredible wildlife photo. His two elephants have been bathed in a gorgeous golden backlight from the setting sun and dust that the elephants have kicked up adds loads of atmosphere too. His shoot conditions were nothing short of tricky so he's done a marvellous job to catch a perfect moment with a well exposed image.

Masha's photo is dreamlike, airy and bathed in wonderful golden sunset tones. We like her use of a long telephoto lens which has helped her zoom in from afar giving the portrait more of a reportage feel to it and looks like she's captured a magical moment in time as the children play outside.

Nguyen has masterfully turned these striking figures into stark silhouettes with the setting sun behind them and has also made sure to position the sun close to the middle figure to create a starburst effect. His timing has been spot on, taking the shot when the people on stilts all have one leg in the air. It all adds up to a very colourful, unique photograph that undoubtedly draws the eye in.

We love Kljad's choice of a long 500mm lens for this shot which has helped compress the perspective and make the sun much larger in the frame. The framing is very minimalistic with only a few elements and colours in the shot but all works very well together and was a strong 2nd place in our Sunset Scenes contest. Great work!

Aaron's caught a fantastic bolt of lightning that certainly catches the eye and he's done a great job at keeping the shot well exposed with those lovely sunset tones too. It's just a fraction too minimalist for us though, and we'd have loved to see one more element within the frame to give this shot a clear focal point like a building or lighthouse etc. These small points aside it's a great shot!

This is a fantastic shot from Chris, who used a fisheye lens to squeeze in this long line of camels into his frame. He's clearly a big fan of symmetry too, choosing to backlight a middle portion of the 'train' with the sun which has the wonderful effect of turning them into a silhouette and adding a much needed splash of colour, creating an obvious focal point.

Marie has caught a great shot here and we love her framing and positioning of the sun within this frame to make it part of a narrative. However as the sun is quite high in the sky it doesn't quite fit into our 'sunset' theme but regardless it's a well executed creative photo.

Barbara's caught a beautiful sunset here in the Masai Mara where the low sun has illuminated the whole landscape in a fantastic fiery red and orange and turned the trees and animals into brilliant silhouettes along the horizon. Great job!

Sara's done a brilliant job at backlighting this horse to turn it into a striking silhouette and she's caught a great moment where it's in an interesting pose and looking very windswept too! The image is a tad dark and flat, so if there was a little more of the sunset in the frame it would have made the picture a little brighter and more colourful and Sara would have been onto a winner.

Matt's captured a lovely summery landscape full of colour. He's exposed well, retaining detail in the sky and has used a shallow depth of field to blur the flowers in the foreground which take you through to the lighthouse behind. The flowers are a little oddly placed and we think you might have been able to get closer to just a few flowers instead to make them larger in the foreground and also help simplify the shot to make it a little neater.

Steve's shot is wonderfully abstract, playing on colour, shape and form very nicely indeed. It certainly makes you look twice as you try to figure out what it is you're looking at among the swooshing waves and brilliant colours. Great job!

Alicja's clever camera and editing trickery certainly makes for a playful shot that caught our eye. While this isn't directly a shot of a sunset, it's a shot taken at sunset with beautiful golden light and low sun angle which creates the elongated shadow. Clever idea and neat execution - great job!