July's Photography Results are Finalised

July is our ICT month and back then you all set about your homework with some enthusiasm, and learnt how to take really good photographs. Over the summer, normally I met up with my teacher friends, they judge your efforts (I leave the room so I can’t be said to favour anyone) and there are prizes to be given out.

However, this year, we have something different. I went on a summer course on film making and I met there a professional photograph, who kindly offered to judge the photographs as well!

Here are the winners and the feedback from the professional underneath.

Edited

The angle makes this very interesting; you have the almost horizontal at the bottom of the plant life, which grounds the picture. Followed by the stripy bands of colour in the sand, in sea and the sky. The angle of the rock formations in line with the clouds in the sky, make this very eye catching. The editing has been done very carefully, we have very natural colour palette of the vegetation, which harmonies with the sand and the rock against the un natural edit sea and sky.

Landscape

There is so much texture here, you have the duck weed in the near foreground, the Lilly pads in the mid ground, then clouds in the background. The sky and the water have very similar in tones. These all meet with the juxtaposition of the trees and the purple flowers making a pleasing triangle around the water fountain in the middle.

My Six Things

This photograph captures a young man who is just about to move from childhood with the teddies and toy trucks into his teenager years with the sports equipment and game console. The way the check teddy has his arms out displaying the medals and the strip teddy looks like he is bending down to lift the weighs gives the story a context.

Still Life Tells a Story

II understand the learners have been given a list of things that they must putting the photograph, we can see all of them but the sense of humour in which they have been combined is what makes this a winner. Along with the angle in which the photo has been taken, this mean the photographer is out of shot with is difficult when working with a mirror. You often get some tale tell reflection or shadow caught in the photograph some were.

Portrait

As a portrait, it is taken from the back to protect the sitter’s identity. The head is centred beautifully. The lighting gives us a good sharp picture without too much shadow in the background. The tilt of the head means we get both the cheek, eyebrow and lashes, just enough but not too much. The light falls on some curls and the hair clip to the top left and the hair gets progressively darker as the eye sweeps left to right. The texture and direction of the hair contrasts with the grey strip of the fabric beneath.

Wild Life, Farm Animals and Pets

What I like about this photograph is the animal is looking directly down the lens at the photographer. The eyes and ears are alert, there is interest here and the animal is engaged with the viewer. This is somebodies’ horse, we can tell by the horse blanket, and harness, but it has not been brushed up and preened to look good for the photograph. It's been out, it's got mud all over itself and the splash of mud on its face echoes the white flash on its forehead. Beautiful centred too!

All of your photographs are now being shown in the gallery, visit the Orchard Training home page, and look out for the 2023 Photographs, and winners you need to let me know where you would like the voucher to come from.