With thanks to Justin Cliffe for the adjudication 

Winner

Chinese Card School, Guangxi Province, China by Paul Reynolds

This is a very pleasing photo, I like the way that the photographer has got down to the level of the card players, involving us in the scene. This also makes the most of the light, from the window on the left, lighting up the faces of the two card players on the right.

The colours, especially the blue garments being worn by three of the 4 players contrasts nicely with the red curtain in the background which, helping to add a sense of place, is covered with Chinese lettering.

One minor point, we cannot see the eyes of any of the card players - principally because they are looking down at their cards. If the photographer had moved just a little to the left, instead of being right in the middle, and focused more on two players on the right, this might have helped. Just a suggestion!

I also have three, quite different, photographs for Highly Commended. These are, in no particular order:

Prayer Flags Over Shanti Stupa, Ladakh by Jane Tearle

What works well here are the prayer flags coming into the frame from the top left and leading us down towards the buildings perched on the rocks to the right of the frame. They also help fill a large part of the, probably uninteresting, blue sky.

There’s no doubt where we are with this image - another example giving us excellent sense of place and a one that that, helped by the wide angle lens used by the photographer, involves us in the image, there’s a sense of actually being there with the photographer.

Desert reclaiming Kolmanskop, Namibia by Omar Shamma

Photographs of the sand reclaiming Kolmanskop, or even this building, are not unusual but this image works for me because of the position taken by the photographer in looking through a series of doors, lead our eyes through from one room to the next.

The dark blue coloured walls and door frames make for a nice, graphic image whilst the sand, flowing through the rooms, softens it, creating a restful and peaceful view of the house that’s been overtaken by both time and the desert.

Mara River Crossing, Masai Mara, Kenya by Sanjoy Sengupta

This one is interesting, in that it shows a herd of wildebeest crossing a river (not unusual) but, in the background, 7 or 8 jeeps with tourists all watching them, to an extent not often seen together.

The composition works well, helped by the high viewpoint, with the curved line of the wildebeest snaking across the river and then up on to the bank and out onto the plain beyond. The soft, muted colours, typical of the region are well suited to the image. A good image which tells a compelling story about tourism interacting with nature, to go with it.