As I gather photos for the
July edition of the Guardian's Been There photo competition, I find myself once again contemplating how to avoid cliched images and stand out from the heap of submissions the contest must receive--and standing out is particularly tricky, since the contest is open to professional photographers. They've recently revamped the submission policy, so it's now possible to see my competitors' submissions. The submissions range from lackluster to quite beautiful, and in scrolling through the images that have already been uploaded, I can see a few key commonalities among the images that stand out to me.
The first factor that draws my eye is light. Of course exposure matters, but I'm referring here more to the subject of the photo than to its technical merits. Particularly in photos featuring skyscapes, my eye is automatically drawn to photos which feature bursts of light--especially when the light highlights an interesting feature of the landscape or conveys motion, as in photos of clouds with sunbeams bursting through. The second factor is foreground vs. background--photos with some depth (often but not always those which follow the
rule of thirds or incorporate
leading lines) catch my eye more frequently; photos in which the foreground and background are indistinguishable seem flat and uninteresting to me for the most part. The final common element in the photos that appealed to me was the successful inclusion of objects of interest. A strategically placed person or object can draw your eye to an interesting part of the photo or create a sense of motion.
So, after thinking about these principles and scrolling through my own insanely large collection of photos, I've narrowed my options down to the following contenders.
Which one would you pick? Do you have strong feelings one way or the other about any of these? I have until July 24th to pick my entry, and I'd love to get your thoughts. Remember, you can click on any photo in the blog to see it enlarged.
Thanks in advance for the feedback! Oh, and for those who read my last post, I checked in with the judges and yes, panoramas are allowed.
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| Option 1: Kenai Peninsula, Alaska |
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| Option 2: Cape Horn, Washington |
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| Option 3: Eklutna Lake, Alaska |
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| Option 4: Kenai Peninsula, Alaska |
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| Option 5: View from Flattop, Alaska |
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| Option 6: Florence, Italy |
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| Option 7: Malham, England |
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| Option 8: Volta Region, Ghana |
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| Option 9: Stanley Lake, Idaho |
