Landscape Photo Competition 2011 : Entry Number 424

Judges Comment

Simply perfect. Bare, bleak and beautifully colourless. I love the soft, grey tones which are infact so powerful and contrasted. The photographer has delicately captured a scene that most of us would not even have noticed. Turned these bare trees and some dreadful weather into a beautiful beholding photograph. I can hear the muffled quiet and see the snow falling. This is master class.

The trees are reaching up, stretching out every branch as if posing for a portrait, silhouetting themselves against the blizzard. Exposure is spot on, the processing subtle.

It is the shutter speed that gives slight, oblique movement to the snow flakes, I dare say perfect movement, producing the poetry and creating a dreamland dimension.

The composition is simple, strong and symmetrical, with entrancing horizontal and vertical lines which draw one’s eye to settle gently in the middle, and to linger there.

This is an image to look at again and again, to dream over. It is an image which conjures emotions, it has its own force. This is not photocopy.

The perfect picture and the deserved winner of this competition.

Photographers Comment

This photo was taken at a park in Manville, NJ during a heavy snowstorm. I happened to be driving by the park and spotted these trees in perfect symmetry. The shutter speed was slow enough to slightly blur the large flakes. I used my Nikon D300 with a Sigma 18-200mm lens. F6.3 1/125sec. Focal length 29mm ISO 400. Slight processing in Photoshop CS4. www.siegristphotography.com