We’re happy to announce the winner of May’s competition “Storytelling In A Single Frame.”
For those who don’t know, the Light Stalking Monthly Photography Competition carries a $100 People’s Choice Award and a $100 Overall Winner Award. The People’s Choice Winner is selected by a vote of the community, whereas our guest judge selects the overall winner.
The “Storytelling In A Single Frame” Photo Contest
Storytelling is an important part of photography and it is a great way to portray emotions and communicate the story visually to the audience. Storytelling always does not require detailed planning, as there are many candid moments happening around that hold stories that can be captured, but it does require careful observation and composing the shot with elements that contribute to the story. The photographer needs to make decisions on when to press the shutter button, to capture the right moment.
Capturing storytelling photos can be difficult, especially if you are photographing in a public environment, where you may have to stay discreet when capturing the shots. There are times when you can speak to the subject, get an understanding of them and then capture their story, which allows for intimate emotions to be captured.
Storytelling visually through photographs can be either through a series of photos or just a single frame and May’s contest theme was to capture a storytelling shot in a single frame. With experience, and by choosing the right scenario, photographers will be able to capture storytelling shots in a single frame.
May’s contest theme was, “Storytelling In A Single Frame” and participants submitted images there were varied from cheerful and fun to emotional moments, most of which portrayed very strong stories and emotions.
When choosing the winning photos, we wanted to make sure that the decision process was based on a good interpretation of the theme followed by other factors like light, composition, story, details, creative vision / thought, etc. The results are entirely subjective and there are no losers in any competition as we all know.
Here are May’s winners:
First Place: “Spare Change Please” by Frogdaily
Frogdaily has beautifully captured the emotions of a child by a pathway. We can see the child’s innocence and him looking forward to something, but not very interested in his current situation. Frogdaily has also chosen to post-process the image in monochrome, which allows the viewers to focus on the subject and his story, without getting distracted by the elements around.
The composition is also brilliant in the photo with space left towards the direction the child is looking and then all the lines in the frame leading towards the child. The multiple layers of texture and the light in the frame also add more interest to the photo.
Congratulations on the win Frogdaily and for capturing a brilliant storytelling photo.
Second Place: “BuStop” by Jean T
The photo “BuStop” by Jean T looks like a fun image that can be interpreted in many ways. It depends on the viewer’s creative thoughts and interpretation of the scene. Jean managed to capture this moment of a person standing by this place at the right time.
The writings seem to be written by someone for fun by a railway track (I think). The light is just right and the horizontal and vertical lines in the photo add a touch of creativity to the photo. The varied textures are also interesting in the frame and again, Jean’s decision to convert the image to monochrome has made the photo more effective.
Congratulations Jean for this beautifully captured image.
Third Place: “Jean Waiting” by Jerre P
This image captured by Jerre is very emotive and clearly tells a story of a subject who is dressed up for the weather and eagerly/anxiously waiting for someone. Jerre has provided us a short description below that explains the situation and the story.
“My wife’s mother, in her late 80s, was not able to renew her driver’s license. She was quietly depressed about it and entirely uncertain about how she could retain her active life. The moment described in this photo as she waited for a neighbour to pick her up and take her to church enabled all of us to better understand the impact of her loss of her license and her independence.”
When framing the shot, it was a great decision to include the car in the frame as it adds to the story. Congratulations Jerre on this emotional storytelling photo.
People’s Choice Award Winner
Our monthly photo contests also come with a People’s Choice Award. The winner of this part of the contest receives $100 worth of store credit on Lightstalking which they can spend as they please on our blueprints, drills, courses or Presets.
The most popular photo for May, voted by the contestants was “Contentment” by Kaleem S, which has won the people’s choice award. Kaleem has made use of soft light and a simple composition to capture this gentle photo. The soft side light illuminates the subjects by just the right amount and both portray a feeling of content through their expressions, which was beautifully captured by Kaleem. This photo also looks like a great example of juxtaposition.
The monochrome treatment makes the image simple and lets the viewer focus on the story, eliminating anything colourful that may have been in the frame. The black background makes the subjects stand out and also outlines the subjects, revealing the soft textures in the frame. Congratulations Kaleem S on the win and a beautifully captured image.
We are about three weeks into this month’s photo contest and still have a few days left to submit photos to our June’s monthly contest. It has already seen some entries with interesting submissions. This month, our theme is “Minimalism And Simplicity.”
If you would like to join and enter some images into our monthly contest then take a look at your options here.