Winner Chosen - November 2010 - Admin's choice - Image of the month

[Marko]

Hi members,

In case you are new around here this is where the Admin (me) chooses one excellent photo each month from all the photos nominated by other members during that month in the Member's monthly choice forum.

Just so it's clear, the photo I choose is not necessarily the best one of the month. I've come to realize it's not really logical to pit images from totally different genres against each other. That's why there are categories in photo contests.

My goal is to simply choose an excellent photo and talk about why I think it rocks. I just wanted to point out that each month this is getting much harder. I had LOTS of trouble choosing just 1 image. There will also be a couple honourable mentions that will be posted in the blog in a week's time.

This month's choice is Retired by Bambi

I chose this image for several reasons:

Striking quality - The boat lies on a diagonal and is right up on shore encroaching into the foreground from the midground forming a triangle at the front end. This helps give it visual interest which adds to the striking quality.

Colour palette - I really like the muted colour palette here both on the boat and in the background foliage, it works with the subject matter and theme of being retired.

Mood/theme + printing - Mood and theme are hard to sum up and they are often interpreted differently by different viewers. But for me, I'm really feeling the mood of being retired in the image. This is no accident; the way the image is printed (shown) is helping to achieve this. If I had a niggle, I might try to up the contrast a wee bit overall and squeeze out a bit more shadow detail from the boat's underside. Then again this might simply be due to monitor differences.

Composition - I quite like the composition here; Nice use of the rule of thirds, and I like the framing as well. I dig how the boat looks vertically 'bookended' by the shoreline and the background trees. There are interesting shapes in the image (repeating triangles of the boat and tree reflections just to name two). I like the interesting objects in the foreground, the midground reflections, and moody sky in the background.

For all these reasons, this is my choice for image of the month. 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.

Congrats again Bambi for capturing this beauty of a boat!