Traffic Lights and Traffic Signs (in colour)

This warning sign meant to inform traffic drivers of the street’s gradient works equally well for the old gentleman holding onto the rail as he struggles down the steep steps. Luckily you were quick-witted enough to capture the decisive, juxtaposed moment when two unconnected elements came together to produce your well-observed street sign photo.

Your conceptual thinking is right on so many levels. It shows one can feel alone even amongst a crowd of people. It shows individuality. It shows non-conformity. It shows the strength of repetition in a graphic composition. And, it shows that by placing a solitary, green pedestrian marching through stationary levels of red pedestrians, you have deservedly won this traffic light photo competition.

Juxtaposition is one of the most powerful tools in a street photographer’s hands. Your poster male hunk’s apposition wearing Calvin Clines has turned him into a green-eyed Cyclops simply by placing traffic lights in front of his face. Creative photography is about taking photo compositions that little bit further, to turn them from being mediocre to being outstanding. This is precisely what you’ve done with your cleverly observed juxtaposition.

There were a few entries featuring this London art installation but I chose yours because you waited to capture it against a dark, sun-setting sky to beautifully enhance the red, amber and green traffic light colours. This competition-winning, sculpture by the Frenchman, Pierre Vivant had travelled around several London locations before arriving at its Billingsgate Market site. It would have been amiss of me not to include one of the fantastic traffic light installation photos in my top ten and yours, in my opinion, was the best entry.

The crop on this traffic light photo breaks all conventional compositional rules. The odd shape of the photo is not quite square and the content is so busy one can’t work out what’s going on. Yet, by pushing the traffic light gantry to the extreme corners you’ve managed to create a well-balanced photograph. Your were fortunate to catch the green lights from inside your moving Tenerife coach to match the rest of the scene’s colour palette. I like the playful challenge you pose to the viewer to locate other traffic lights hidden within your photo.

What a great smorgasbord of Scandinavian traffic signs. Warnings of speed limits, road humps, priority directions, workman, narrowing roads, loose stones and roaming moose are all unusually congregated in one place. Well done for capturing your unique photo of traffic signs - just shows what riches can be found when one ventures to have an inquisitive look behind a shed.

The leading lines, the rule of thirds and the half divided composition all come into play in your perfectly aligned landscape photo. Warning of the likelihood of strange creatures running across the desert road differs uniquely from the many urban entries to this challenge. I like that, in order to light your photo, you’ve pulled over to the hard shoulder and angled your car headlights, to highlight the road signs, against the gloriously multicoloured Australian sky.

This stop sign would have been perfect sticking out of virgin white snow but unfortunately one wouldn’t have recognised it for what it was with the wording buried under the white stuff. You were forced to uncover the sign to make the words visible but in the process left traces of yourself.. I like that you haven’t tried to Photoshop out your footsteps where you’ve approached the sign to roughly expose the ‘Stop’ letters. The unintentional bonus is that your photo now tells a different story from the one you intended by including your movements in the snow.

I love the minimalist complimentary colours of the fiery red street sign against the lime green building wall. The angled sign against the straight lines of the building also neatly compliment one another. Over the years, I’ve seen many photos of buildings from this South African, Bo-Kaap district and, as in your shot, the colours never fail to amaze me. I’ll add Cape Town to my bucket list of places to visit and hopefully I’ll manage to shoot a photograph as good as your traffic sign entry.