With many thanks to this month's adjudicator, Justin Cliffe

Good to see 23 images entered  this month - and some excellent ones amongst them, making it quite a challenge to come up with a winner. As always, when shortlisting the month’s images, I am looking for impact or emotion, or something that makes an image stand out from the others. 

I feel that the following all fulfil this criteria - and so, for my winner this month, I have chosen:

Winner

Incense Stick Factory, Vietnam by Jeremy Fraser-Mitchell

An excellent environmental portrait with the woman preparing the incense sticks. The lighting is lovely, presumably just coming through the door to the left of the woman who, fortuitously, has turned to look at the photographer, thereby allowing the light to catch her face and give us a connection to her. Exposure has been handled well whilst the colours all tone nicely together.

Just one suggestion, she’s quite small in terms of frame - cropping about a quarter off the right and a little off the top and bottom would give more prominence to her, still show us the environment in which she is working and have the benefit of removing the two light / white objects on the right side of the frame which are a little distracting. That said, an excellent photograph.

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

After Friday Prayers, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India by Richard Broomfield

A very different photograph to the previous one - a joyful one, with six young men, neatly divided into two groups of three, clearly enjoying their interaction with the photographer and with each other. This grouping works well, with the 4th man looking across his friend on the left, connecting the two groups together. Their surroundings give us a little indication as to where they are whilst the colour scheme, different hues of blue, grey and white, all tone well together. 

Qasr Al Watan, Abu Dhabi by David Short

When doing a first run through of this month’s images, this one made me stop and have a second look - it’s almost in the cubist style of Picasso, definitely different! 

Credit to the photographer for seeing and photographing this - and keeping the symmetry - without getting themselves in the picture! What’s good is that we get to see different facets of this spectacular palace, all in a single frame!

Boy on a bus, Kataragama, Sri Lanka by Rob Morgan

This image has impact - the boy staring back at the photographer, clearly happy to be the centre of intention, whilst his mother (presumably) is less enamoured. It also tells us a bit about the relationship between the two and their respective characters.

The vivid colours are possibly a little too vivid or saturated however the figures are nicely framed by the train window. It’s tightly cropped, a little more space around could have given a little more sense of the environment. 

Woman Carrying Fishing Nets, Vietnam by Brian Houghton

This stands out with the woman’s vivid coloured clothing and scarf - against the grey of the stormy sky behind her. She is very centrally placed in the frame and there does appear to be a very strong vignette which almost looks unnatural. Consider cropping a little off the top and the right - and reducing the vignette which, together, will, to my mind at least, create a stronger image. That said, it’s an eye-catching image and definitely has impact.