Winners chosen -May 2009 - Admin's choice - Images of the month

[Marko]

Hi members,

This is a relatively new suggestion from a thread by Mad Aussie
where the Admin (me) chooses one excellent photo each month from the Show forum, the critique forum and the assignment forum to talk about and suggest why it is good as a learning tool.

I have spent several hours going through every single thread from May 2009 from the Show forums, the assignment forums and the critique forum....and it's getting harder and harder to choose one image. Also it's really hard to choose 1 image from many totally different genres.

This month I could not decide on 1 image and so I declare this month has two winners.

This month the winners are Michaelaw and z06-jim

Michaelaw's winning photo is Wood Duck

I chose this image because the duck is beautifully rendered, extremely sharp, there's light in the duck's eye, the composition is excellent and the background water is is just beautiful.

z06-jim's winning photo is Navy 'LST 325' Landing Ship

I chose this image because the leading lines in this image draw you right into the ship. This perspective is very unusual and it totally works. The lines tie the foreground with the mid/background and successfully guide my eye to where it needs to go. The composition here works as well, I like the sky's muted colours, and I like the HDR treatment in this shot as it is not too overdone.

Since we all have opinions, some members may disagree with my choice. That's cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to further critique the image. The purpose here is to suggest strong elements in the photo that we may learn from.

I think I will add 2-3 honourable mentions as there were also another bunch of shots that came soooo close. I'll likely post them in the blog but add a link to them in this thread.

Congrats again Michaelaw and z06-jim for creating these beautiful images.