It's a great pleasure to announce the winners for the July photography competition “Urban Geometry“
If you're not already aware, then the monthly photography competition here at Light Stalking carries a $100 People Choice Award and a $100 overall winner award. The People's Choice Award is selected by a vote of the community and our outright winner is by a guest judge with which this month happens to be moi!
The Urban Geometry Photo Contest
July's contest theme was urban geometry and it's one of those ideas that really gets city photographers excited because it can be interpreted in so many ways and the photos can be quite powerful.
It lets photographers explore lines, shapes, angles, patterns, symmetry and repetition caused by architecture and infrastructure and other elements if they can incorporate them. Now buildings provide obvious geometric elements but it's not always buildings that produce the the types of images they want. Some of the entries this month managed to incorporate natural items.
One of the things I really like about the theme is that it invites architectural photographers to explore the strong lines that guide people's eye through frames. It allows those photographers to find repetition and patterns that often make quite stunning and strong images.
First Place
This month's winner was this stunning image by Stephanie Markham. It mesmerized me as it's one of those images where it is not immediately obvious what you're actually looking at and I have a soft spot for people who are able to achieve this in a photograph. In fact, I couldn't figure this one out at all. It is blatantly abstract, and that is why I love it. Anyone who has tried to achieve an abstract photograph knows how difficult the composition can be, but Stephanie really nailed it with this one.
Now if you're looking at it and wondering what it is, then I don't blame you. And I actually had to do a bit of research and ask Stephanie herself. This amazing structure is in Helsinki in Finland – The Temppeliaukio Church, or Church of the Rock. The church was designed by architects and brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen and opened in 1969 and is built directly into solid rock. The ceiling disc is made of copper coils. And it's one of those places that produces a lot of opportunities for serious photographers and especially those who are driven by original and unique compositions.
Congratulations to Stephanie. She wins this month's photo contest and gets the grand prize of $100 cash.
Second Place (and People's Choice Award)
The second-place getter was also quite an interesting shot from Pat Garrett called Holy Geometry. I found this quite an eye-grabbing image with the lights being such a profound centre of interest with By strengthening the three church doors the green to yellow colour palette really worked well in this image and I think it was one of the standouts of the month so congratulations to Pat.
As luck would have it, this was also the highest vote-getter. So it wins the People's Choice Awards for this month a huge effort from Pat.
Third Place
The third-place getter was Bike Parking in Dramatic Light by Robert Betchel which is the type of high contrast black and white urban shot that I absolutely love The strong element of the bike rack is backed up beautifully by the almost perfect shadows and dark background which make for such a profoundly strong composition. Well done to Robert for this cracker of an image. Simple shots like these are extremely difficult to find in reality
This was another very solid collection of images from members of the site and I think they all outdid themselves again
Next month the theme moves on to the dynamics of colour which I think opens up a huge swathe of images that people could be submitting. As always I don't want you to think too hard about the theme, but rather about whether you have achieved your aims with your image if you're not already signed up for the monthly photography competitions, then you can do so here and if you are you can go over here to submit your entries.
Good luck!
