Digital Photography Competition - June Results

It's time to cast our critical eyes over this month's winners.

Hot air balloon - not great. Very flat lighting, no sense of depth between balloon and landscape. Weird left to right green patch in middle of photo disrupts composition. Would have been better later in evening when light from burner illuminates balloon. Logo on balloon obscured by balloon's rotation. Very poor distinction between basket and background. Verdict: an Ok holiday snap, not a competition winner though. Not by a long shot.

Camels - positive first reaction soon gives way to the photo's faults. Ghastly composition, cutting off the furthest right camel. Camels too close together, merged, messy silhouettes. Bad lense vignetting. Insufficient colour in sky. Too much dark foreground, perhaps misuse of rule of thirds. Spoiled most by the unbalanced left to right composition problem, the right half of the frame just feels so unbalanced. Verdict: careful cropping could have saved this one, but in its current state it's poor.

Boat - exciting, vibrant, but full of blur and out of focus in places. Unsightly unfocussed decking unbalances the top right. Not convinced the off centre horizon is deliberate here, and certainly not convinced that it works. The bulk of this pic, the blue ocean spray, is blurred, and that's a shame.

All these pics have great stories, and it would seem the judges are rewarding people for their original blurbs behind each pic, and not for the artistic merits behind each pic.

But show these three to any pro and I doubt any would be seriously considered for a book or exhibition. Of course my views are subjective, but I don't see in these pics any of the brilliance that I see in great photography.

John, your amazing photograph seems to be missing, I was looking forward to seeing a true master :)

I just love Rod's boat shot, the blurred water in the foreground gives a fantastic sense of motion leading you along the boat. The colours and silhouettes of the camels in Kevin's shot are amazing. I love the point of view on Nathaniel's baloon shot. Great shots from the rest as well

Robert, I do not claim to be an amazing photographer. Anyone can offer photographic critique - it boosts their credibility if their portfolio is amazing, but that doesn't mean that amateurs 'aren't qualified' to critique.

What bothers me is that so many amateurs are so uncritical of their work. They are blindly oblivious to the errors of their (or others') work. So many amateur photographers have zero awareness of compositional critique, to the point that they all go round patting each other on the back for poor shots. This frustrates me.

I'm not a pro, and I'm pleased that you like this month's images, but I find that none of them works for me. I'd be intrigued to see what a pro would think of them.