The United States

This picture caught my eye because of the clever juxtaposition of the cloud with its own reflection in the building. Nicely seen by the photographer. Reminds me of the famous photograph by Andre Kertesz called 'Lost Cloud', also shot in New York City. One small thought, if it were me, I might have moved very slightly to my left to just take the really harsh edge off the sun. I like the fact that it is just poking around the top of the building, but I think the effect could still have been achieved by obscuring a little more of the sun and thus solving the issue of the harsh highlight. Nicely observed and well shot.

The brief was to 'show us a fresh take, an angle we haven’t seen before, an unusual side'. As you might expect from any USA challenge there were lots of skylines shot across rivers illuminated at night. Many of them very nice pictures, but something we've all seen before. This, I think, is a little different. The photographer is still using the long exposure techniques to bring a tranquility to the scene with the glassy water, but instead of shooting at night, she or he appears to have photographed just before or just after the lights have come on or gone out. I don't know if this is morning or evening, but the little bit of light hitting the buildings in the centre are just enough to draw me in. The subtle use of colour also feels like it adds to the image of a modern city. I feel like the photographer knew what they wanted to achieve with this image and have accomplished it beautifully.

I like this image, very clearly shot in the US, but not the usual scene. The photographer has made clever use of colour and framing, a slightly long lens appears to have compressed the perspective into a simple geometry. If it were me, however, I would have just shot three of the cars, cropping in from the left to take out the first car and tree. I think that would make both the composition and the use of colour better by taking away the natural light coloured wood and focussing only on the yellow, green and rust red that we would be left with. As it is my eye is being drawn to the left hand side of the image, but is not rewarded when it gets there as the car is partially obscured and the colour is weaker than the rest of the picture.

There is something here that makes me think that there was a really interesting picture to be made. I appreciate that it was a chance encounter and the photographer had to stop the car and work quickly, but I still feel more could have been achieved.

The first rule is to anticipate and be ready (difficult when you are driving, I know) with your camera at hand for spontaneous moments like this. Secondly, if it is worth stopping the car to take the picture, then it is worth getting out of the car and working around the scene compositionally. There was clearly some potential here for a great shot and I expect there was an opportunity to follow the sequence, walk around it, drive on a bit further....something that would have offered an opportunity to capture this scene a bit better.

Of course, sometimes it just doesn't happen and the picture 'gets away'. If that happens, too bad, but if you didn't capture the moment the way you wanted to, then let it go. A nearly picture is just frustrating and a reminder of what could have been.

PS. I've got thousands of nearly pictures on digital and on unprinted film. We all have. Just leave them be. They didn't work. It's OK.

This of course, is a classic view, photographed a million times every year I guess. Not always as nicely as this though. With a very familiar viewpoint like this, it is difficult to bring something new to the scene and you are reliant on interesting light to make it work. The sun here is just right illuminating the foreground trees and rock face whilst also throwing a bit of light onto the mountain in the far distance thereby taking your eye through the picture. For my taste, I feel like it is a little over saturated in colour and too contrasty, but that may be because I shoot on film a lot and find the crisp intense colour of digital to be a little over the top sometimes.

Another oft photographed location, this time Antelope Canyon in Arizona. It is something of a mecca for travellers and photographers. I've included this picture partly because it was shot on an iPhone and it shows that you don't need all the technical and expensive kit to make good pictures. I'm not familiar with the exact location of this shot, but I might have experimented with taking a step back or lifting the camera higher to lose the distracting bleached out section of sky. I like the dark 'ceiling' framing the image, but I wonder if that could have still been included without the patch of sky. In doing so it may have assisted the automatic camera by not having it deal with such contrast. It may have been that we would have seen more detail in the dark areas and less of the stray light creating the harsh yellow at the top of the rock. The latitude of these automatic digital cameras is extraordinary, but they still benefit from careful handling when the light is just too contrasty.

I can see the idea behind this image and get a sense of what the photographer is trying to do: create the impression of a chaotic and busy street by overlaying multiple images on top of each other. In some senses it works as a blur of colour and shapes, but for me it's just a bit too chaotic and doesn't really tell me anything that I don't already know: so New York is busy!

Nice idea, but just doesn't quite work for me.

The Golden Gate Bridge is another emblem of the US and photographed over and over again. The photographer here is picking up on the red colour of the bridge and has clearly done a lot of post production work to remove all colour except the red to emphasise that point. It's a shame because the perspective and way it is shot is different to the usual images of the bridge, the graphic shapes are interesting and the people using it as a footbridge adds a bit of character to the shot. I would rather have seen it without all the colour adjustments though - they really don't add anything to the shot, but rather detract from what otherwise may have had potential.

This is a great American scene and nicely observed. We asked for 'a fresh take' and this fits the bill: something that immediately says USA but isn't a picture postcard view.

If it had been me however, I would have avoided the table, chair and sauce bottles in the foreground and the arm coming in from the right. It's difficult not knowing the location, so it may not have been possible to move much, but certainly moving the chair and leaning across the condiments would have created a much cleaner image. Either that or simply standing up and shooting over the top or moving around to the other side of the table and shooting a bit closer. I like it, but just a shame that the foreground is so distracting.

This is a nicely observed moment and I like it a lot. I very nearly didn't include it in my top ten though because there is something bothering me about it. I just feel that the moment is so well seen that some of the editing and or framing is distracting a bit from the essential simplicity of the image. The rough borders around the image could very well be the frame of the window the photographer was shooting from, but I find it a bit distracting, the image is good enough without that. A crisp edge to the image would, I think, draw the attention more to the girl on the fire escape and a bit more care with the contrast and toning would help lift her a little to focus the eye further. These are just my views and certainly something that can still be done from the original file. Look at Walker Evans for subtlety in b/w printing.

Now, for me, this is an interesting photograph. Difficult to tell whether there has had a lot of post-production work on it, but if so, it is subtle enough to add to the image rather than BE the image. It looks like the image has much of the colour removed other than red and yellow, but it's quite possible that is was shot through a grimy, darkened hotel window which renders much of the colour very flat. Either way, I get the sense that the photographer visualised the effect he/she wanted and it really gives a feel for the place and the weather rather than just a literal postcard view. I've stayed in many hotels with views like that and it tells me something about New Orleans that isn't in the brochures.

This picture I like very much. Not because it is a landscape that I know particularly, but because of the tranquility in the scene and the subtle use of the complimentary pale colours of blue and yellow/orange. The light touch with the colour really adds to the feeling of space and grandeur so that I can almost taste the freshness of the air on a light breeze. There is a temptation too often to over saturate colours (and many digital cameras do that automatically) or under expose pictures to increase the colour, but often that heavy colour saturation smacks of over editing and this picture avoids that beautifully. It looks like it has been shot in hard midday light and the photographer has captured exactly that.

What a mass of humanity, colour, noise and mayhem, a real sense of New York City. The composition works well with the people travelling horizontally across the frame whilst the buildings create the perspective both vertically and into the distance. I like the traffic light at the top holding the edge of the frame in. Without it the eye would have been drawn to the blank sky. One concern is the over saturation of colour – it's really not necessary and serves to make the scene look a little unreal. I know there is an unreality to all that neon and bright colour, but over doing it undermines the impact I feel. The picture is well observed, you don't need the camera trickery to make it work. It works.

The USA is a dream for neon lights and signposts on motels and drive-ins. Balancing artificial light with fading daylight is a well used method of bringing pictures to life and this one works well. I like the fact that the photographer has not left it too late to shoot (the most common error with this type of shot). It is important to balance the level of the artificial light with the natural light. Once it is dark you have to compromise between losing highlight detail in the neon signs or losing colour and detail in the sky or surrounding unlit landscape. Of course sometimes you want to lose detail in the surroundings to isolate the subject, but it is always a compromise. The balance here for me is just right: we can still see detail in the unlit surroundings whilst the artificial light is not so overpowering that it dominates the shot.