Winner Chosen - September 2012 - 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.

This month's choice is Into Botany Bay by Barefoot.

I chose this image for several reasons:

1 - Post Processing & Mood baby, Mood - This image is oozing a mysterious mood that is making my eye do a happy dance. The success of this mood is achieved through a fine composition and some creative black and white processing and the resulting image is very striking.

2 - Composition - Fabulous composition here that guides our eye beautifully. The longest tree branch at left is moving toward the right side, and the road below it is also heading in the same direction. Our eye naturally follows. The road is considerably brighter than the dark trees and so our eye follows it for that reason as well. Intersecting branches from the left and right sides combine to create triangular forms that are also interesting to our eye in multiple planes. Those too help guide our eye. The angle of framing here also rocks and this is no accident.

3 - Exposure - I really like that I can see subtle shadow detail as well as some highlight detail here. This adds to the mood for me.

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 Barefoot!