Travel Image of the Month - December 2021 : Walking To The Mine, Beiquan - Ian Silvester

Our judge for this month, Justin Cliffe ARPS, commented:

Walking To The Mine, Beiquan - Ian Silvester
"Lovely pastel colours here, the railway track leading us nicely into the picture and on to the steam of the train in the background (without which the photo would lose some of its impact). 
I do like the inclusion of the two individuals pushing their bicycles along the path into the picture and the signpost gives us an indication as to where we might be - but it’s not distracting. All in all a very pleasing image."

I also have three Highly Commended images which, in no particular order, are:

Stormy Venice - Gabriele Dellanave
"One sees so many images of Venice in lovely conditions but here it’s anything but - instead wet and clearly very windy!  I like the way that the photographer has caught the person in the foreground crouching low as he/she fights his/her way through the wind and rain - which we can see is falling heavily. We know where we are, we can sense the conditions that the photographer was enduring - a rather different perspective on Venice from the norm."

Sitting outside with the grandchildren, Ghana - David Portwain

"Lots going on in this image with each of the 4 people featured looking in a different direction and each with differing expressions - I would be interested to hear their conversations! I love the composition of the figures, starting with the boy on the left and then working our way across and down the frame to the girl on the bottom right. These two also have the dominant blue(-ish) clothing, neatly book-ending the group - a lovely photograph." 

House Boating, Lake Powell - Bob Chiu
"An eye-catching photograph, with a lovely rendition of the Milky Way and the moored boat providing a base and foreground interest to the image. I couldn’t work out whether this was two separate images stitched together or from a single photograph - it doesn’t matter. What does is that it’s a skilfully taken image and one that certainly makes one stop and look more closely at it."

Congratulations to Ian Silvester for his winning shot, which will become part of our monthly gallery that can be viewed on the website.

This then is the final image for this year, from which an overall winning image of the year will be chosen at the Annual General Meeting in April by Hazel Frost FRPS. 

All winning shots for 2021 can be found here.