Justin Cliffe writes:

As always, it’s great to see some lovely images from all around the world - this month I’ve short-listed images from both near (London) and afar (Vietnam) and three in between, from which I’ve picked, as my winner:

Turkish Art, Cappadocia by Sanjoy Sengupta

I felt that this image tells us a lot about the artist - and his studio. He’s clearly prolific and very talented - I’m intrigued by all the pieces of paper in front of him - are they his order book? The lighting on him works really well, but we can still see the background and his environment - though neither distract. 

Composition is good, helped by the angle from which the photograph has been taken, leading our eye, initially, to the artist and then on to his other pieces of work in the background. An excellent, and well-taken, travel photograph.

Highly Commended

Larking around in Vietnam by StuThompson

This is a joyful, and eye-catching photograph, helped, in particular, by the wonderful expression of the boy on the right of the frame. This more than offsets the boy on the left, who’s looking out of the frame, possibly at someone who’s telling him what to do - in a perfect world, he’d have been engaging with the girl to his left.

Their t-shirts tell us that we’re in Vietnam - perhaps it’s their national day - adding to the impact of the photograph. Well exposed with a nice, simple, out of focus background.

Posing For the Lens on Queen's Walk, Tower Bridge London by Sarang Brand

A very simple scene, but one being replicated, probably, hundreds of time a time at, or near this spot - Tower Bridge in the background telling us exactly where we are.  The pigeon in the foreground is a nice, added, touch.

As regards the composition - my feeling is we don’t need some of the left side of the image - a crop down the black stanchion brings the two girls nearer to the centre of the frame whilst removing the left tower of the bridge which does draw my eye away from the main subject matter on account of it being quite bright.

A nice slice of life in London neatly encapsulated here.

Impressions of Venice by Mandy Davies

I’ve seen a lot of Intentional Camera Movement photos of gondolas in Venice, but this one of the better ones. Very simple, muted colours, a lovely, gentle, sense of movement and so obviously Venice. 

If I have one comment to make - it would be to take a bit off the top of the image as there’s a lot of empty / white space which, on the RPS’s page, makes it difficult to see where top of the image ends - perhaps a key line around the edge would also have helped.

Venice at the time of carnival by AndreJa Ravnak

Wonderful colours with the woman’s dress complementing the colours of the lovely lights. Perfectly positioned in the middle of the image, our eyes go straight to her and the narrow depth of field - and telephoto lens - used here is very effective, enabling her to stand out from the nicely muted background.

A rhetorical question - do we need all the lights at the top of the frame? Whilst there could be an argument for cropping, say the top quarter, I feel that this would be counter-productive as it adds to the scale of the room and the aurora of the place.